SOCIETY, MANNERS AND POLITICS 
 
 UNITED STATES : 
 
 SERIES OF LETTERS ON NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 BY MICHAEL CHEVALIER. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD PARIS EDITION, 
 
 
 BOSTON : 
 WEEKS, JORDAN AND COMPANY. 
 
 1839. 
 
 -
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, 
 
 BY WEEKS, JORDAN & Co. 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 T0TTLE, DENNETT AND CHISHOLM'S 
 POWEtt PRESS, 
 
 No. 17 School Street, Eoiton. 

 
 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 M. CHEVALIER was sent to this country in 1834, 
 under the patronage of Thiers, then Minister of the 
 Interior, in France, to inspect our public works. But 
 attracted by the novel spectacle presented by society 
 in the United States, he extended the time of his 
 stay and the sphere of his observations amongst us, 
 and spent two years in visiting nearly all parts of the 
 Union, and studying the workings of our social and 
 political machinery. His letters give the results of his 
 observations, the impressions made on his mind, his 
 speculations in regard to the future destiny of our in- 
 stitutions, rather than a detailed narrative of facts and 
 events, which, however, is introduced when necessary 
 for illustration or proof. The translator is not, of 
 course, to be considered responsible for all the opinions 
 and statements of the original ; but it will be found, 
 in his judgment, that M. Chevalier has studied with 
 diligence and sagacity, drawn his conclusions with cau- 
 tion and discrimination, and stated his views in a clear, 
 forcible, and interesting manner. He seems to be per- 
 fectly free from any narrowness or prejudice, ready to 
 recognise whatever is good or of good tendency, wheth- 
 
 803005
 
 iv NOTicit. 
 
 er in character, manners, modes of life, political and 
 social institutions, habits, or opinions, without regard to 
 mere personal likes and dislikes ; and to be equally 
 frank in condemning, whenever he perceives, in our 
 practices, a violation of our own principles, or of those 
 of an enlightened philosophy. He tells many home 
 truths to all parties and classes. Some passages of the 
 letters and many of the notes, which have no particu- 
 lar interest in this country, have been omitted. M. 
 Chevalier's work has been very favourably received in 
 his own country, where it has passed through several 
 editions. T. G. BRADFORD. 
 
 Boston, October, 1839.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 . 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Course of our Civilisation over the World. Oriental Civilisation, Euro- 
 pean Civilisation. Their approaching Contact. The Arabians stand 
 between them. Movement of European Civilisation towards the East. 
 Two Routes to the East. The Three European Types. Latin Europe, 
 Teutonic Europe, Sclavonic Europe. Mixed Character of France and 
 Austria. The part to be played by France. . . . . " . 9 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 I. THE RAILROAD FHOM LONDON TO PARIS. 
 
 Analogy between certain Political and Voltaic Phenomena France and 
 England. In what we should imitate the English. Railroads. Ob- 
 jects of a Journey in England. The Feudal Castle of Heidelberg and 
 the London Brewery 19 
 
 II. LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILROAD. 
 
 Impressions of the Railroad. Railroads in France. Steam Carriages 
 will not interfere with Railroads. Analogy between the present Con- 
 dition of France and the State of England after the Expulsion of the 
 Stuarts. Religion in Liverpool 29 
 
 III. WAR OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES UPON THE BANK. 
 State of the Question. History of Banks in the United States. Creation 
 
 of the Bank of the United States in 1616 i it restored order in the finan- 
 ces of the country. Causes of the Antipathy of the Body of the People 
 against Banks. Benefits which all Classes have derived from Banks. 
 Commercial Crisis. ... 37 
 
 IV. THE DEMOCRACY. THE BANK. 
 
 Democratic Movements in France. Less Influence than in the United 
 States. Errors of the Local Banks. Their Dividends. Wisdom of 
 the Bank of the United States Political Dangers of the great National
 
 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Bank Services rendered by it. The President's Accusations against 
 the Bank. The Multitude applauds. . .... 46 
 
 V. MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. BANK QUESTION. 
 
 Industrial Crisis. Backstairs Influence in Monarchies and Republics. 
 Party Demonstrations. Imperfection of the Banking System. Excess 
 of Paper Money. Modification of the Bank Charter. Good Sense of 
 the American Democracy. How great Questions are settled in the 
 United Slates 65 
 
 VI. PBOGBESS OF THE STBUGGLE. NEW POWERS. 
 
 Length of the Debates in Congress. The Bank must withdraw. Old Dig- 
 nities and old Politics. New Dignities and new Politics. New Power 
 of Industry 69 
 
 VII. RAILROADS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Rage of the Americans for Railroads. Universal Use of Railroads. 
 Glance at Railroads in the United States 80 
 
 VIII. THE BANKS. PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 
 
 Truce between the Parties. Possibility of a Compromise. The Demo- 
 cracy must prevail. The Bond of Union grows weaker. Probability of 
 the Preservation of the Union. Changes which it may undergo. The 
 three Sections, North, South, and West 87 
 
 IX. THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WOBLD. 
 
 Pretensions of every Nation to Superiority. Pretensions of the Ameri- 
 cans. The Superiority passes from People to People. New Peoples. 
 Russia and the United States. English Opinions of the United States. 
 The Social System in the United States superior in respect to the Condi- 
 tion of the Labouring Classes 100 
 
 X. THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 
 
 Course of Emigration toward the West Two great Columns of Emi- 
 grants. Character of each. Share of Europe. Virginian Type. 
 Yankee Type. Yankee Predominance in the last half Century. The 
 Virginian may in turn get the upper Hand. Advantages of the Contrast 
 of Character. Two Types in History. Nations of three Types. Ex- 
 cess of Unity in France 109 
 
 XI. THE CITY OF LOWELL. 
 
 Losses of the Jackson Party. Aspect of Lowell. Rise of American 
 Manufactures. Founding of Lowell. Lowell Railroad. Influence of 
 Manufactures on the Happiness and Morality of the People. . . 125
 
 I 
 
 CONTENTS. 3 
 
 r**. 
 
 XII. FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 
 
 Results of Machinery. The Locomotive Engine. Wages in Lowell. 
 Factory Girls. American Manners. Measures of the Manufacturing 
 Companies to preserve Good Morals in Lowell. French Manners. Will 
 Good Morals last at Lowell? Moral and Political Influence of the Pub- 
 lic Lands. . X 133 
 
 XIII. THE BANK. SLAVERY. 
 
 Preparations for the Elections. Bank Question. Slavery gives the Means 
 of saving the Bank. States' Rights Party. Concessions of the North 
 in regard to Slavery 145 
 
 XIV. THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 The Jackson Party repairing its Losses. Decisive Results in New York. 
 New Acts of Hostility against the Bank. Hatred of Monied Men on 
 both sides of the Atlantic 157 
 
 XV. PITTSBUBG. 
 
 French Settlement of Pittsburg. Aspect of Pittsburg. Its Manufactures. 
 Rise and Growth of Towns in the United States. Triple Symbol of 
 the Church, of Schools and the Press, and of the Bank. . . .166 
 
 XVI. GENERAL JACKSON. 
 
 Revolution effected by the General. His Military Success. His Charac- 
 ter. His bold Tactics. His Embarrassments 170 
 
 XVII. PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 Public Opinion in America very different from Public Opinion in Europe. 
 Government of the Democracy. The Senate 185 
 
 XVIII. CINCINNATI. 
 
 Situation and Aspect Manufactories. Slaughtering of Hogs. Water 
 Works. General Harrison. Dependent Condition of the Pubkc Officers. 1 90 
 
 XIX. CINCINNATI. 
 
 Industry of the Inhabitants. Industrial Feudalism. Patronage. Absence 
 of Idlers. Rigourous Supervision kept up over them in the whole Coun- 
 try. Why the Americans do not please certain European Travellers. 
 Gratitude which Posterity will feel for them 200 
 
 XX. WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 
 
 Influence of Means of Communication on Civilisation and Liberty. State 
 of the West before the Introduction of Steamboats. Introduction of 
 Steamboats. Description. Passengers. Life aboard. Accidents ; lit- 
 tle Attention which they attract. Real Rulers in the West. Importance 
 of the West. - . - 209
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 XXI. INTERCOMMUNICATION. 
 
 Hydrographical, Political, and Commercial Divisions of the Union. Sys- 
 tems of Public Works resulting therefrom. Lines extending from East 
 to West. Erie Canal, Pennsylvania Canal, &c. Communications be- 
 tween the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Basins. Ohio Canal and others. 
 Improvements in the Navigation of bolh Rivers. Communication 
 along the Atlantic Coast. Coasting Trade. Lines of Railroads and 
 Steamboats. Routes radiating from the Capitals. Works around Coal 
 Mines. Miscellaneous Works. National Road. Character of the Pub- 
 lic Works in the United States. American Engineers. The Public 
 Works strengthen the Union. Necessity of the European Governments 
 executing similar Works , ; . 227 
 
 XXII. LABOUR. 
 
 French Essays in planting Colonies in America. The English Colonial 
 System. American Society organised for Work. -Haste. Organisation 
 of Labour peculiar to America. Organisation proper for France. Can- 
 ada. Algiers 276 
 
 XXIII. MONEY. 
 
 Money among the English and Americans. System of Honour. Its pre- 
 sent Impracticability in France. Pay for Public Services. Gratuitous 
 Services in France. Condition of Public Functionaries in the United 
 States. Influence of the Progress of Manufactures on the Pay of Public 
 Officers. No Marriages for Money in the United States. No Misers. 292 
 
 XXIV. SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Speculation in Land, in Railroads, and in Banks. Speculation necessary to 
 the Americans. Unsettled Condition of every thing in the United States. 
 Trades' Unions. Inconveniencies of the Excess of the Innovating Power. 305 
 
 XXV. BEDFOBD SPRINGS. 
 
 Exclusiveness. Religious Festivals formerly Democratic Festivals. Po- 
 litical Processions. Camp Meetings. Women in Camp Meetings; and 
 in the Roman Catholic Festivals Suppression of the popular Festivals 
 in Europe. Influence of the Philosophy of the XVIIIth century on the 
 Imagination. Struggle between the Young, Middle-Aged, and Old in 
 France. Pleasures of the Imagination in England and the United States. 315 
 
 XXVI. POWER AND LIBERTY. 
 
 Situation and Character of Richmond. Slavery. Richmond Flour. In- 
 spection Laws. American Liberty is Liberty of Industry and Locomo- 
 tion Few Restrictions upon the Interior Trade. Old' Restrictions 
 upon French Commerce. Decline of the Foreign Commerce of France. 
 Twofold Authority in the United States. Ancient Authority, Caesar. 
 Duties imposed by Self-Government. The Authority of Caesar could be
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 destroyed in the United States, but not in Europe. New Authority by 
 the side of Caesar. Canal, School, and Bank Commissioners; their 
 Powers. How Industry may flourish in Europe by the side of Caesar. 
 Of American Liberty. The Liberty of the Yankee would be intolerable 
 to a Frenchman. Liberty of the Virginian more like our own. Mix- 
 ture of the two Liberties ........ . , . 325 
 
 XXVII. PROGRESS OF SOCIETY. 
 
 Universal Appearance of Comfort in the American Population. Effect 
 upon the Condition of Women. State of the Blacks in the United States. 
 
 Diminution of Taxes considered as a Measure of Relief for the poorer 
 Classes. The encouragement of Industry a more effectual Relief. 
 American Prosperity the Fruit of Labour. Means of giving Activity to 
 Industry in France. 1. Industrial Education. 2. The bad State of 
 Credit in France paralyses the Spirit of Enterprise. Banking Institu- 
 tions suited to France. 3. Credit must be made accessible to the Culti- 
 vator. Saving effected by an improved System of Credit. 4. Means 
 of Internal Communication Influence of a Credit System on the Means 
 of Communication. Diminution of Price caused by Facility of Carriage. 
 5. Legislative Reforms. The Civil Code too closely modelled on the 
 Roman Law ; its Defects in regard to Industry. The Laws in the Uni- 
 ted States. Jury Trials in Civil Causes ....... 341 
 
 XXVIII. SOCIAL REFORM. 
 
 Moral Obstacles to the Emancipation of the Blacks in the United States . 
 
 Exclusive Spirit of the English Race. The Yankees are new Jews. 
 
 The Difficulty in the Way of the Emancipation of the Labouring Class 
 in Europe also of a Moral Kind. Insufficiency of Philanthropy and Phil- 
 osophy. Necessity of Religion. Inaction of the Religious Author- 
 ity in Europe. Religion has effected the Elevation of the lower Classes 
 in the United States. Influence of Political Institutions on the Social 
 Re/orm. Connection between the Religion and the Political Condition 
 of Nations. Protestantism is Republican ; Catholicism Monarchical. 
 
 The Growth of Liberty depends on the Development of Local and Mu - 
 nicipal Institutions. The Spirit of Association and the Spirit of Divi- 
 sion. The Principles of Unity and Association must prevail in France. 360 
 
 XXIX. THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 Tendency to Centralisation in the State of New York ; in the School Sys- 
 tem; in the Banking-System ; in the System of Public Works. Results 
 of Public Works. Charters of Canal and Railroad Companies. Influ- 
 ence of the Example of New York. Modern Nations cannot dispense 
 with the Action of Authority. Religion cannot fully take the place 
 of Political Authority. Authority must change its Attributes. 
 Banks, Means of Communication, and Schools are the Instruments of 
 Government, which must, in part, take the Place of the Ancient Attri- 
 butes of Authority. Inviolability of the Individual. Favourable Dispo- 
 sition of the Public Mind ......... 370 
 
 1
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 P.J.. 
 
 XXX. SYMPTOMS or A REVOLUTION- 
 
 Riots and Outrages Committed. Decrease of Respect for the Laws. 
 Wrongs of Popular Justice. Havoc committed in Baltimore Neglect 
 of great Principles. Diminution of Civil Courage. Dependent State of 
 the Press. Want of restraining Power. Industrial Superiority and 
 Political Inferiority of the present Generation in the United States. 
 Probable Issue of the Crisis. 385 
 
 XXXI. THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 Elements of French Society Remnants of the Aristocracy. Active Por- 
 tion of the Middle Class ; Idle Portion. Labourers and Peasants. Ele- 
 ments of American Society. Middle Class and Democracy. Difference 
 between the North and the South. Disappearance of an Idle Class in 
 America. The Idle Part of the Middle Class must disappear in Europe. 
 There is no Reason for its Existence. It has no Office. Advantages 
 resulting from its being merged in the Active Portion of the Class. . 396 
 
 XXXII. ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 Authority is yet to organise itself in the United States. Authority is 
 founded upon Centralisation and Distinction of Ranks. Present Charac- 
 ter of Authority in America. Representative Government, become the 
 Government of the Majority, tends to Tyranny. Difference between the 
 South and the North. Aristocracy of Birth; Aristocracy of Talents 
 Both co-existed in Ancient Society. Forms of Aristocracy among the 
 Romans and the Greeks. Vigourous Organisation of the Feudal Aris- 
 tocracy. Violent Reaction against the Nobility. Christianity has con- 
 tributed to this Reaction. The Feudal System fixed the Barbarians. 
 Primogeniture in the English Commons. Advantages of a Hereditary 
 Aristocracy. Growth of the Sentiment of Family. Necessity of ba- 
 lancing the Innovating and the Conservative Elements of Society. How 
 Stability has been secured without the Hereditary Principle. Difficulty 
 ia the Way of the immediate Abolition of the Hereditary Aristocracy in 
 Europe. The absolute Hereditary Principle has been irretrievably weak- 
 ened. Hereditary Transmission of Office. Where can the Elements 
 of an Aristocracy in France he found ? How can an Aristocracy be 
 established in the United States? Germs of Aristocracy in the South. 
 Dangers of American Society. 405 
 
 XXXIII. DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Burden of the Past on the old Societies. Difficulty of Reforms in old 
 Countries Facility of Innovation in new Countries. Advantages pos- 
 sessed by the Anglo-Americans for making Social Experiments. The 
 American Labourer is initiated. Absence of the Profanum Vulgus in 
 the United States. The Labouring Classes in the United States are su 
 perior to those of other Countries. Defects of the American Democracy. 
 Analogy to the Romans. Superiority of the Educated Classes in Eu- 
 rope. The respective Merits, present and future, of America and Europe. 422
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 NOTES AT THE END OF THE VOLUME. 
 
 Page. 
 
 1. Use of Iron. Manufacture of Iron in France and England. Its future 
 
 use in Architecture, 441 
 
 2. Coal mined in England, France and Belgium, 442 
 
 3. Exports of Domestic Produce from France, England, and the United States, 443 
 
 4. Navigation. Tonnage of the Shipping of France, England, and the 
 
 United States, 443 
 
 5. Nullification, (omitted.) 
 
 6. The Bank of the United States. Comparison with the Bank of France 
 
 and the Bank of England. Local Banks. Private Bankers and Joint 
 Stock Banks in England. Provincial Banks in France, . . . 444 
 
 7. Of Failures in the United States, 449 
 
 8. The Press in the United States ; compared with the English and French 
 
 Press, 452 
 
 9. Transfer of Funds by the Bank of the United States, ... 453 
 
 10. Paper Money and Metallic Currency. In France ; in the United States ; 
 
 in England, 453 
 
 11. The Cherokees, Creeks, and other Indian Tribes. Indian Policy of the 
 Federal Government, (omitted.) 
 
 12. Public Lands. System of Survey and Sale. Quantity sold and for sale, 
 (omitted.) 
 
 13. Temperance Societies, (omitted.) 
 
 14. The Cotton Manufacture in France, England, and the United States, 454 
 
 15. Production and Consumption of Cotton throughout the World, . 456 
 
 16. Degradation of the People of Colour, (omitted.) 
 
 17. Trial of the Incendiaries of the Ursuline Coiivent 456 
 
 18. Anthracite Coal, (omitted.) 
 
 19. Conclusion of the Question of the Public Deposits, (omitted.) 
 
 20. Taxation in the United States, 458 
 
 21. Construction and Cost of Steamboats in the West. Number of Steam- 
 boats in the United States, 460 
 
 22. Summary View of Public Works in the United States, . . . 462 
 
 23. Geological Surveys, '. 466

 
 LETTERS ON NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. THAT form of civilization which has prevailed 
 among the European nations, has moved, in its march 
 over the globe, from east to west. From its cradles in 
 the depths of old Asia and Upper Egypt, it advanced, 
 by successive stages, to the shores of the Atlantic, 
 along which it spread itself from the southern point 
 of Spain to the northern extremity of the British Isles 
 and the Scandinavian peninsula. It seemed to have here 
 reached its goal when Christopher Columbus showed it 
 the way to the New World. At each stage it has taken 
 up a new faith, new manners, new laws, new customs, 
 a different language, dress, and food, different modes of 
 life, public and private. The great questions touching the 
 relation of man to God, to his fellows, and to the universe, 
 and domestic, social, and political order, which had all 
 been solved at the beginning of the halt, were, after a 
 while, brought again into discussion, and then civilization, 
 starting again on her march, has moved onward toward 
 the west, to give them a new solution. 
 
 This stream, setting from the east toward the west, is 
 formed by the junction of two others flowing from the 
 two great Bible races of Japhet and Shem ; which, coming 
 from the north and the south, meet and mingle together, 
 and are replenished from their respective sources, during 
 2
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 each period of our civilization, through all the episodes, 
 which obstruct and chequer this majestic pilgrimage. By 
 turns, each of these forces, whose combined action con- 
 stitutes the motive power that carries mankind forward 
 in its course, has been overborne by the other. Thence 
 it is, that our civilization, instead of advancing in a straight 
 line from east to west, has swerved in its march, either 
 from the north toward the south, or from the south toward 
 the north, taking a winding and devious course, and 
 gathering up, by turns, purer drops from the blood of 
 Shem or of Japhet. There has been, however, this 
 difference between the North and the South ; that the 
 South has most often acted upon the North by sending 
 to it the germs of civilization, without overrunning it 
 with a new race ; while the North has awakened the 
 slumbering civilization of the South by pouring over it 
 swarms of hardy barbarians, audax Japeti genus. Thus 
 is fulfilled the great prophecy concerning Japhet, that 
 "he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." 
 
 2. Independent of our civilization and distinct from 
 it, there is another in the furthest East, whose centre is 
 China, and whose outposts are Japan, and which embraces 
 its hundreds of millions of men. It moves in a direction 
 contrary to our own, from west to east, and its locomotive 
 powers are slight ; we might compare the respective 
 speed of these two civilizations to the two great revolu- 
 tions of the globe, the annual revolution in its orbit, and 
 that which gives rise to the precession of the equinoxes. 
 This oriental civilization, like that of the west, has 
 repeatedly regenerated itself by a new mixture of the 
 man of the North with the man of the South. The 
 race of Japhet, which gave us our Barbarians, and, before 
 the Barbarians, had given us the Pelasgians, Scythians, 
 Celts, and Thracians, and has since given us the Turks 
 and Sclavonians, has also furnished the East with its
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 Mongols and Manchoos. The family of Gengis Khan, 
 which conquered the East, also pushed its victorious 
 hordes, at the same time, to the Rhine. 
 
 The Eastern civilization, less active and less easily set 
 in motion than the Western, probably because it has not 
 enough of the blood of Shem, and has too much of that 
 of the inferior races, has not risen to the same degree of 
 improvement with its sister. But we must do it the 
 justice to confess, that to it belongs the honor of several 
 capital inventions and discoveries, such as the mariners' 
 compass, printing, and gun-powder, on which we pride 
 ourselves ; and we must moreover acknowledge that it 
 has solved the problem, to keep under one law, for an 
 indefinite number of ages, a population greater than that 
 of all Europe. The Roman empire, whose population 
 was less than that of China, stood whole only three hun- 
 dred years. The spiritual authority of the Pope extended 
 over less territory than that of the Roman empire, and 
 was absolutely acknowledged only from Charlemagne to 
 Luther. 
 
 3. The two civilizations, thus gathered together at 
 the two extremities of the old continent, and turning their 
 backs upon each other, were separated by an immense 
 space . before the western had fixed itself in America ; 
 now, more than half the intervening distance is passed ; 
 Mexico and South America are covered with offsets from 
 the latter, on the side which looks toward Asia, as well 
 as on that which fronts us : the United States cannot 
 long delay to extend themselves from sea to sea ; the 
 Islands of the South Sea are beginning to be peopled by 
 Europeans. From this point of view, it is clear that 
 America, placed between the two civilizations, is reserved 
 for high destinies, and that the progress of population in 
 the New World is a matter of the deepest interest to the 
 whole human race.
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The connecting of the two civilizations is certainly 
 the broadest subject that can occupy the human mind ; 
 it is, in the eyes of the friend of man, an event of all 
 others most big with hope. It embraces, politically, the 
 association of all peoples, the balance of the world, of 
 which the balance of Europe is only a part ; in religion, 
 the whole law of the human family, the true Catholicism: 
 morally, the most harmonious reciprocal action of the two 
 opposite natures, which divide each race, each sex, each 
 people, and each family, and which are typified in the 
 Bible by Cain and Abel ; intellectually, the complete 
 encyclopaedia and the universal language ; industrially, a 
 definite plan for developing the resources of the globe. 
 In our time this question is no longer merely speculative ; 
 it is now something more than merely food for the dreams 
 of philosophers ; it should be the subject of the medita- 
 tions of statesmen. 
 
 Since the age of Louis XIV., the merchants, who are 
 the pioneers of state policy, have striven with a con- 
 stantly increasing ardor, to open relations with China, 
 because they have felt the importance of a regular system 
 of exchanges between Europe and a mass of two hundred 
 million of producers and consumers. The emancipation 
 of North America, and quite lately the abolition of the 
 English East India Company's monopoly, have given to 
 the efforts of commerce an irresistible force ; before this 
 power, the laws which close up the celestial empire are 
 nothing. China is encircled, on the south, by the English 
 and their tributaries ; on the north, by the Cossacks, the 
 van-guard of Russia ; British and American fleets prowl 
 along her coasts ; the sleepy Spaniards of Mexico and 
 the Philippines think of the days of the galleons, and 
 keep their half-opened eyes fixed upon her. The human 
 race has just come into possession of new means of 
 communication, which shorten distance in an unexpected
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 degree. The two civilizations will soon reach each other 
 and mingle together ; it will be the greatest event in the 
 history of man. 
 
 4. Before the art of navigation was brought to per- 
 fection, before Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama, 
 Europe had had communications with China through the 
 medium of the Arabs, independently of the cavarans 
 which traversed Central Asia. The Arabs, conquerors 
 and missionaries placed between the two civiliza- 
 tions, had spread themselves by turns toward the East 
 and the West. That people, so active by starts, has 
 been to the East the messenger of the West, and 
 to the West, the courier and factor of the East. Unhap- 
 pily since the Western civilization has shone with the 
 greatest brilliancy in Europe, Arabia has flung out but 
 feeble gleams of light ; since Providence has filled us 
 with a devouring activity, the Arabians are fallen into 
 a deep lethargy ; on that side, therefore, the intercourse, 
 which was never complete nor speedy, has almost ceased. 
 But if, as some suppose, the Arab race is about to rouse 
 itself from its long stupor, at the voice and by the aid of 
 Europe, the latter will then have a powerful ally in its 
 efforts to seize and hold Asia, or to transmit to her the 
 means of working out. her own restoration, and this illus- 
 trious race will thus contribute essentially to the mar- 
 riage of the two civilizations. 
 
 5. Our civilization, in its march westward, has some- 
 times turned back towards the East ; thus it has had its 
 Argonauts, its Agamemnons, and its Alexanders, and more 
 lately its heroes of the crusades and its Portuguese cap- 
 tains. These partial movements were but temporary inter- 
 ruptions of its solemn march toward the West ; they 
 were merely countercurrents, resembling the eddies 
 which always exist in the currents of rivers. Until our 
 own time, Europe has founded no durable and important
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 establishment in Asia ; in proportion as our civilization 
 advanced westwards, the countries which it left behind 
 escaped from its influence, and the distance between it 
 and the oriental civilization, became greater. Alexander 
 is the only person of whom China could feel any fear, 
 and he passed away like the lightning flash. The Par- 
 thians, the Saracens, or the Turks, were the impregnable 
 bulwarks of eastern Asia. The mission of Europe was, 
 above all things, to reach and settle a new hemisphere. 
 
 At present, the incontestible superiority of the western 
 nations in wealth, in mechanical skill, in means of trans- 
 portation, in government, in the art of war, enables them 
 to make their way across the Old World toward the re- 
 motest recesses of Asia. The nations whom we are 
 accustomed to call oriental, but who are only inhabitants 
 of the Lesser East, have ceased to be formidable adver- 
 saries to Europe ; they delivered up their swords, at 
 Heliopolis, Navarino, and Adrianople. The colonization 
 of America is now at length completed from Hudson's 
 Bay to Cape Horn, but Europe can and ought to move 
 towards the East as well as towards the West ; the 
 isthmus of Suez has as good a chance as the isthmus of 
 Panama, to become the route of western civilization to 
 the Greater East. 
 
 6. Our European civilization has a twofold source, the 
 Romans and the Teutonic nations. Setting aside for the 
 present Russia, who is a new comer, and who already, 
 however, equals the most powerful of the elder states, it 
 is subdivided into two families, each of which is marked 
 by its strong likeness to one of the mother nations, which 
 have contributed to give birth to both. Thus there is the 
 Latin Europe, and the Teutonic Europe ; the former 
 comprises the south, the latter the people of. the north; 
 the former is Roman Catholic, the latter Protestant ; the 
 one speaks Teutonic languages, and the other, idioms,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 in which Latin is predominant. These two branches, Latin 
 and German, re-appear in the New World ; South Ameri- 
 ca, like southern Europe, is Roman Catholic and Latin ; 
 North America belongs to the Protestant Anglo-Saxon 
 population. 
 
 In the great enterprise of bringing together European 
 and Asiatic civilization, the Teutonic and Latin nations 
 may both find a field of action ; both occupy in Europe 
 and America, by land and sea, admirable outposts and ex- 
 cellent positions round that imperturbable Asia, into which 
 it is their object to force their way. But, during the last 
 age, the superiority which formerly belonged to the Latin 
 family, has passed into the hands of the Teutonic race, 
 owing partly to the energy of England in the Old World, 
 and that of her sons in the New, and partly to the loosen- 
 ing of the old religious and moral ties among the Latin 
 nations. The Sclavonic race, which has lately shown 
 itself, and which now forms a third group of nations in 
 Europe, seems ready to contest with the Latin race even 
 the possession of the second rank ; it is only the Russians 
 and Anglo-Saxons that interest themselves about Further 
 Asia, and press upon its frontiers by land and by sea. 
 The people of the Latin stock must not, however, stand 
 idle in the coming struggle, or the case will go against 
 them by default ; an excellent opportunity is now offered 
 to regain their lost rank. 
 
 7. In our three-headed Europe, Teutonic, Latin, and 
 Sclavonic, two nations, France and Austria, present them- 
 selves under less distinct features, and with less exclusive 
 characters than the others. France shares in the Teutonic 
 and Latin natures ; in religion, she is Catholic in feeling, 
 but Protestant out of caprice ; she unites the nervous un- 
 derstanding of the Germans with the elegant taste of the 
 southern nations. Austria, by the education and origin of 
 the people of her different states, is half Sclavonic, half
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Teutonic, and she is connected with the Latin family by 
 her religion. France and Austria are, then, the natural 
 mediums of communication, the one between the Ger- 
 mans and Latins, and the other between the Germans and 
 Sclavonians ; Austria is chiefly Teutonic, as France is 
 essentially Latin. From this mixed character of France 
 and Austria, we may conclude, that whenever the balance 
 of Europe, or the harmonious combination of all European 
 nations in one common object, shall become subjects of 
 discussion, both will exercise a decisive influence, and 
 their hearty co-operation in a common cause will make 
 them irresistible. Austria has a more central position than 
 France ; she has a greater number of points of contact 
 with the different types of western civilization ; but 
 France combines the invaluable advantages of a more 
 homogeneous constitution, and a more flexible tempera- 
 ment ; she has a physiognomy more strongly marked, a 
 mission more clearly defined, and above all, she has more 
 of the social spirit. She is at the head of the Latin group ; 
 she is its protectress. 
 
 8. In the events which seem about to dawn upon us, 
 France may, then, take a most important share ; she is the 
 depositary of the destinies of all the Latin nations of both 
 continents. She alone can save the whole family from 
 being swallowed up by a double flood of Sclavonians and 
 Germans. To her it belongs to rouse them from the leth- 
 argy into which they are plunged in both hemispheres, to 
 raise them to the level of other nations, and to enable them 
 again to take a stand in the world ; she also is called upon, 
 perhaps more than any other power, to encourage the new 
 spirit, which seems to be re-animating the Arabians, and 
 through them to shake the East. .Thus the political the- 
 atre, seen from a French point of view, shows, in a distant 
 back-ground, the meeting of the Oriental and the Western 
 civilizations, in which we are called upon to act as medi-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 ators, and in the fore-ground, the education, by France, of 
 all the Latin nations, and of many of the Arab tribes 
 living around the Mediterranean. 
 
 There may be a difference of opinion as to the time 
 when these revolutions, which are to agitate the depths of 
 Asia, will take place ; I am one of those who think it not 
 far off. I can easily conceive, also, that some persons 
 should wish to lessen the circle of French influence, and 
 confine it to the southern countries of Europe ; although 
 to me France seems called upon to exercise a benevolent 
 and wholesome care over the people of South America, 
 who are not yet fit to take care of themselves, and although 
 the old traditions of the crusades, the conquest of Algiers, 
 and the recollection of the expedition into Egypt, seem to 
 promise us one of the first parts in the drama which will 
 be acted on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 As for the European nations of the Latin family, no 
 one, I suppose, can have any doubts concerning our 
 supremacy over them, or concerning our duties, both to 
 them and to ourselves, in relation to them. We have been 
 notoriously the head of the family since the time of Louis 
 XIV., and we can neither shrink from the burdens, nor 
 from the privileges of our situation. Our superiority is 
 acknowledged by all its members, our protection has been 
 accepted by all, whenever it has been offered without 
 selfish views. Happy would it have been for France, if, 
 content with this high prerogative, her princes, and above 
 all he who has added new lustre to the name of Emperor, 
 had not been obstinately bent on the unnatural purpose of 
 extending their authority over the members of the Teu- 
 tonic family ! 
 
 9. Since the weight has been thrown into the Saxon 
 
 scale, since the English race has overborne France and 
 
 Spain in Asia, in America, and in Europe, new institutions, 
 
 naw rules of government, new ideas, new modes of action, 
 
 3
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in social, political, and individual life, have sprung up 
 among the English, and more especially among their suc- 
 cessors in the New World ; everything connected with 
 labor and the condition of the greater number of working 
 men, has been carried to a degree of perfection before un- 
 heard of. It seems as if, by the aid of these improve- 
 ments,' the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons over the Latin 
 family, must go on constantly increasing. The French, 
 of all the Latin nations, are most favorably placed, and the 
 only one well placed, to avail themselves of these improve- 
 ments by adapting them to their own exigencies. We 
 are full of energy ; never has our mind been more fairly 
 thrown open ; never were our hearts more ready to throb 
 for noble enterprises. 
 
 But we must set ourselves at work without delay ; we 
 must do this, setting aside all considerations of general 
 policy, and of the contact, whether more or less remote, 
 of the two civilizations. It is a matter of the last neces- 
 sity in regard to ourselves, even supposing that we have 
 not to transmit to the southern nations of Europe, of whom 
 we are the eldest, and to the inhabitants of the Levant, 
 those improvements which their situation demands, and 
 which they are ready to receive at our hands ; our own 
 welfare, t>ur own existence is at stake. How, and under 
 what form shall we be able to make the innovations of the 
 English race our own ? This difficult and complicated 
 question has been the chief object of my attention during 
 my residence in the New World ; I do not claim the honor 
 of having even partially solved it. But I shall feel satis- 
 fied, if the thoughts suggested to me by the sight of an 
 order of things so unlike our own, falling under the eyes 
 of one more far-sighted than myself, shall put him in the 
 way of its solution. 

 
 LONDON AND PARIS RAILROAD. 19 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 RAILROAD FROM LONDON TO PARIS. 
 
 LONDON, Nov. 1, 1833. 
 
 WHILE railroads are talked of at Paris, they are made 
 here. That from London to Birmingham is already be- 
 gun ; it will be 112 miles in length, and all the stock, to 
 the amount of 12,000,000 dollars, has been taken up by 
 subscription ; this road will be continued by another of 
 nearly the same length, from Birmingham to Liverpool, 
 and in five years Liverpool and London will be only eight 
 hours apart. Whilst the English capitalists are executing 
 these great undertakings, the Parisian capitalists look on, 
 but do not stir ; they do not even form projects. Not one 
 of them seems to have seriously considered, that even in 
 the present state of things, there is more than twice the 
 number of travellers between Paris and Versailles, than 
 between Liverpool and Manchester, although the railroad 
 between ,the last named places has been opened three years. 
 In London, therefore, they count little upon the aid of 
 French capitalists in the construction of a railroad from 
 that city to Paris ; they desire it, they would be glad to be 
 able to go from one capital to the other in fifteen hours, 
 and at trifling expense ; all classes are delighted with the 
 idea of such a thing. But they feel that such a work is 
 neither expedient nor feasible, without the joint action of 
 both nations ; and as they dare not hope for the co-opera- 
 tion of France, little is said about it as a serious affair. 
 
 Among all the acquisitions, which, since the end of the 
 last century, have enriched the domain of science, none 
 has opened a wider field than Volta's discoveries relative 
 to the motion of electricity, and its development by con-
 
 20 LETTER I. 
 
 tact. The phenomena resulting from the two poles of the 
 Voltaic battery offer an inexhaustible mine to the physical 
 philosopher ; there is no fact in science more general in its 
 nature, for if any two bodies whatsoever touch each other, 
 they form at once, by their mutual action and reaction, a 
 Voltaic pile of greater or less energy. This physical fact 
 has its counterpart in the moral order of things ; if you 
 bring together two men who have hitherto been separated 
 from each other, in however slight a degree they may 
 have any striking quality, their friction will certainly pro- 
 duce a spark. If instead of two men, the two poles of 
 your battery are two nations, the result is greater in the 
 proportion of a nation to an individual. If these two na- 
 tions are England and France, that is to say, the two most 
 enlightened and most powerful people in the world, this 
 sort of Voltaic phenomenon then acquires a prodigious in- 
 tensity ; it involves nothing less than the safety of an old 
 or the creation of a new civilization. 
 
 The predominant qualities, good or bad, of France and 
 England, may be arranged in a series of parallels, the cor- 
 responding terms in each of which will be complements 
 of each other. England is pre-eminent in affairs, and the 
 qualities which belong to them, coolness, economy, pre- 
 cision, method, perseverance ; taste and genius for the fine 
 arts, with the enthusiasm, the recklessness, the caprice, 
 the irregular habits, the wastefulness, at least in time and 
 words, which characterise the artist, have fallen to the lot 
 of France. On one side, is reason, cautious and sober, but 
 sure-footed, good sense, creeping along the ground ; on 
 the other, imagination with her brilliant audacity, but also 
 with her ignorance of things and method, her starts and 
 trips. Here, an admirable energy in struggling against 
 nature and metamorphosing the physical features of the 
 globe ; there, an unequalled intellectual activity, and the 
 gift of warming the heart of mankind with its fires. In
 
 LONDON AND PARIS RAILROAD. 21 
 
 England, treasures of industry and heaps of gold ; in 
 France, treasures of thought, wells of science, torrents of 
 inspiration. In proud Albion, staid, but cheerless manners, 
 reserve pushed to a chilling excess ; in our fair France, 
 easiness of manners carried to licentiousness, the old Gaul- 
 ish gaiety, often savoring somewhat of the camp, a some- 
 thing of the free and easy bordering on the promiscuous 
 (un sans-fagon expansif qui frise la promiscuite}. On 
 both sides a large dose of pride ; among our neighbors, a 
 calculating, ambitious pride ; the pride of the statesman 
 and the merchant, which feeds only on power and wealth ; 
 which for the country desires conquests, vast colonies, all 
 the Gibraltars and St Helenas, eagle's nests by which all 
 seas and all shores are commanded ; and which for one- 
 self pants for riches, an aristocratic park, a seat in the 
 House of Lords, a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Amongst 
 us, a vain-glorious pride, which longs for the unreal, for 
 ideal pleasures ; a thirst after applause for self, after glory 
 for our country ; a pride, which, for France, would be sat- 
 isfied with the admiration of the world, for self, with cas- 
 tles in the air, a ribband, an epaulet, a line of Beranger 
 as a funeral oration; the pride of the actor on the stage, 
 of the knight in the lists. On the north of the Channel, 
 prevail religion and positive faith; on the south, scepticism, 
 mingled with enthusiasm. There a deep sentiment of 
 order and respect for rank, combined with a haughty feel- 
 ing of the dignity of man ; here, a people eager for equal- 
 ity, excitable, restless, turbulent, yet docile, often even to 
 weakness, confiding, even to credulity, easily cajoled by 
 its flatterers, submitting to be trampled under foot like a 
 carcase, during the period of its lethargy, and at times 
 given over to the most courtier-like obsequiousness. 
 Among the English the reverence for tradition, among the 
 French the passion for novelty, predominates ; among the 
 former respect for the law, and obedience to man, on con-
 
 22 LETTER I. 
 
 dition that his supreme rule shall be the law ; among the 
 latter, the worship of great men, and submission to the 
 laws if they are defended by the sword of Caesar. On 
 one side the ruler of the seas, on the other the arbiter of 
 the continent, rousing the world at their pleasure, the one 
 by its lever of gold, the other by the sound of its voice 
 alone. Surely from the reciprocal influences of two na- 
 tions thus constituted and thus situated on the globe, the 
 most important effects should result, not only on the gen- 
 eral cause of civilization, but on their own mutual im- 
 provement. 
 
 The industrial development is not, indeed, the develop- 
 ment of the whole man, but since the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, no people can be allowed to reckon itself 
 in the first rank of nations, if it is not advanced in the 
 industrial career, if it cannot labor and produce. No peo- 
 ple will be powerful that is not rich, and there is now no 
 other way of growing rich but by work. In regard to 
 production and labor, we have much to learn from Eng- 
 land, and it is a lesson which is to be learned by the eyes 
 rather than by the ears, by observation better than by 
 reading. If, then, there were a railroad between London 
 and Paris, the French, who have now little knowledge of 
 business, would go to London, where the instinct of 
 method is in the blood, to learn. Our speculators would 
 go to see how simply, promptly, and plainly great enter- 
 prises are carried on ; our shop-keepers and buyers have to 
 learn from England that to overcharge and to haggle have 
 no connexion with buying and selling advantageously ; 
 our capitalists and merchants, that there can be no durable 
 commercial prosperity nor security for capital, where there 
 is no system of credit ; they would see the operations of 
 the Bank of England with its branches and the private 
 banks, and perhaps they might be incited to bring home, 
 with the needful modification, institutions and practices so
 
 LONDON AND PARIS RAILROAD. 23 
 
 profitable at once to the share holders and to the public. 
 They would here imbibe the spirit of association, which 
 in London sweats at every pore.* All of us might here 
 see in what consists and how is realised, that comfort, that 
 care of the person, so essential to the peace and quiet of 
 one's life, and Paris might perhaps be led to free itself from 
 the filth of centuries, which formerly gave it its name, 
 and against which eighteen hundred years later, Voltaire, 
 whom the ancient monarchy and the faith of our fathers 
 could not withstand, warred in vain. As we are full of 
 self-love, we should return from England ashamed of the 
 wretched state of our agriculture, our roads, and our ele- 
 mentary schools, humbled at the insignificance of our for- 
 eign commerce, and solicitous to vie with our neighbors. 
 I need not stop to point out what the English might come 
 to seek among us, they are already converts in this matter, 
 they swarm in Paris, while it would be easy to count up 
 the Frenchmen who have been in London. Without say- 
 ing what the English would get in Paris, I may affirm 
 that they would leave plenty of sovereigns there. To 
 Paris, the city of pleasures, the terrestrial paradise of stran- 
 gers, the railroad would be a gold mine, and the English, 
 getting familiar with France, would find profitable invest- 
 ments for their capital among us, which would, give life 
 and energy to useful enterprises. 
 
 The railroad from London to Paris would be a commer- 
 cial enterprise of the first importance ; it would also be a 
 political instrument, a strong bond of union between Eng- 
 land and France. But it is more especially as a means of 
 
 * Thus the London merchants dispense with the care, trouble, and ex- 
 pense of a money-chest on their own premises, and all money operations are 
 transacted by a small number of bankers at the Clearing House. The 
 amount of these transactions often rises to fifteen millions sterling [a day], 
 independently of those which are not strictly commercial, and of those of 
 the retailers, which do not pass through the hands of bankers. See Bdb- 
 bage's Economy of Machinery. 
 

 
 24 LETTER I. 
 
 education, that it should be most highly recommended, for 
 there is no fear that the other points of view will be over- 
 looked. The industrial arts, I said before, are learned 
 chiefly through the eyes ; this is particularly true in regard 
 to the operatives, for in them, owing to their manner of 
 life, the world of sensation prevails over the world of ideas. 
 Now the progress of the mechanical arts depends not less 
 on the workmen than on the foremen and superintendents 
 of the works ; it would be expedient, therefore, to send a 
 certain number of picked operatives to pass a suitable time 
 in England, just as the Board of Public Works (Fonts et 
 Chaussees] is now in the habit of sending a few engineers 
 thither. The railroad, by reducing the expense and trouble 
 of the journey, would probably furnish an opportunity of 
 despatching companies of artisans selected from among 
 those most worthy of the privilege. According to the 
 plan of a merchant of Lyons, a very sensible man, this 
 might be done on a large scale and at little expense ; and 
 he further proposed a system of reciprocity, by which 
 English workmen should be employed in France and 
 French operatives in England. It is not impossible that 
 this project may one day be made the basis of a new law, 
 designed to further the views of our excellent law of pri- 
 mary education ; but the railroad between London and 
 Paris must first be constructed. 
 
 Of the small number of Frenchmen who have visited 
 England,* very few have been led by motives of business. 
 Most have undertaken the voyage from vague feelings of 
 curiosity, or merely for pleasure ; and the objects of their 
 notice have been the picturesque, the poetical. They 
 
 * The whole number of passengers to and from Calais, through which 
 most of the travellers between England and France pass, is only about forty 
 thousand yearly. This is not more than the number passing between Havre 
 and New York.
 
 LONDON AND PARIS RAILROAD. 2/5 
 
 have visited the Gothic ruins of the monasteries and cas- 
 tles, the cave of Fingal, and the lakes of Scotland, ad- 
 mired the costume of the Highlanders, the horses and 
 jockeys of the great lords, and the blooming complexion 
 of the women. They have walked through one or two 
 parks, visited the hot-houses where all the plants of the 
 world are collected, braving, behind the glass, the cloudy 
 sky of Great Britain. They have been through the dock- 
 yards and military arsenals, when they could get leave, 
 under the escort of a sergeant, seen the young beauties of 
 Almacks and the old curiosities of the Tower, and travel- 
 led over England, just as they would make the tour of 
 Italy or Switzerland. If the subject of industry has oc- 
 cupied their attention a moment, it is only in reference to 
 the fashion of some opera decoration. They have, to be 
 sure, stood amazed at the thousands of vessels whose masts 
 stretch out of sight along the Thames or in the docks ;* 
 they have been delighted with the extent of the great 
 manufacturing towns, the magnitude of the manufactories, 
 and the height of their chimneys, with the magical bril- 
 liancy of the gas-lights, with the daring bridges of stone 
 or iron, and with the fantastical appearance of the forge- 
 fires in the night. But they have never asked, how came 
 England to have such a vast number of ships, how has 
 she multiplied and extended her manufactures to such an 
 amazing degree, and how created these towns, so simple 
 in their architecture, but so fastidiously neat in their spa- 
 cious streets ; they have not thought to ask the causes of 
 all this wealth and prosperity. 
 
 Yet he who expects to return satisfied from England 
 should visit her as the dueen of industry ; he should see 
 the city rather than Regent's Park, the East India House 
 
 It is estimated that 25,000 vessels enter the port of London yearly. 
 
 4
 
 26 LETTER I. 
 
 rather than Windsor Castle, seek out the Bank before St. 
 Paul's, the Clearing House before Somerset House, take 
 more interest in the docks and Commercial House, than 
 in the armor preserved in the Tower. He should go to 
 the warehouses, the counting-houses, the workshops, in 
 pursuit of the genius of Great Britain. He must tear 
 himself from the magnificent hospitality of the English 
 country seats, and give up his time to the mines and the 
 forges, which furnish industry with its daily bread, its 
 coal and iron. (Notes 1 and 2 at the end of the vol- 
 ume. ) He must mingle with the stout and active work- 
 men, quite as much as with the more refined society 
 in the saloons of the nobility. For myself, I have found 
 nothing in London which has struck me as more original, 
 and given me greater pleasure, than a shop in Old Change, 
 whose ware-rooms contain twenty times as many goods as 
 the largest warehouse in Paris, and whose business trans- 
 actions amount to two millions sterling a year, and the 
 great brewery of Barclay, Perkins & Co. near London 
 Bridge, the order and arrangement of which are still more 
 striking than its vast extent. 
 
 As I stood is. this brewery, on a floor on which, dis- 
 tributed in different rooms, there were ninetynine vats, 
 some of them holding 500,000 or 600,000 bottles, I thought 
 of the famous Heidelberg tun which I had seen some years 
 ago. It is the only object in a tolerable state of preserva- 
 tion in the delicious chateau of the Palatine counts, and 
 it is faithfully visited by all travellers who go to see that 
 fine ruin, perhaps the finest relic of the feudal times. 
 What a difference now between the old chateau of Hei- 
 delberg with its tun, and the colossal establishment of the 
 English brewer with its regiment of tuns ! The old castle 
 crumbles to pieces ; the rich Gothic sculptures are wearing 
 away. In vain has a French artist (and, strange coinci-
 
 LONDON AND PARIS RAILROAD. 27 
 
 dence ! that artist himself another relic of the feudal age, 
 an emigre, who with a praiseworthy zeal has been for a 
 long time the self-constituted guardian of this fine old 
 monument,) in vain has he urged the government of 
 Baden, to whom the castle belongs, to take some measures 
 for its preservation. Each year some new dilapidation is 
 caused by the frosts of winter and the storms of autumn ; 
 the old chateau will soon become a shapeless mass, the 
 very stones will probably be sold, and nothing will remain, 
 but the drawings of M. de Graimbert, to show what it has 
 been. The Knights' Hall is stripped of its roof the 
 arches, which support the superb terrace whence the eye 
 wanders over the lovely vale of the Neckar and its beauti- 
 ful heights, those arches, rent by the powder of Louvois, 
 will some day sink. Meanwhile, the brewery is en- 
 riched one day with a new building, and the next with a 
 new steam-engine ; and in case of any damage by fire, as 
 recently happened, the loss is immediately repaired ; in 
 the place of the building destroyed by the flames, rises 
 one more splendid, in which the free use of iron will be a 
 protection against new ravages. 
 
 The statues of the Palatine electors are overthrown in 
 their niches ; no son of their vassals will set them up 
 again ; but at the brewery everything is in perfect order ; 
 each tool hangs on its nail, each kettle is kept well-rubbed 
 and bright. The stables of the noble prince are a heap of 
 ruins ; in the stables of the brewer, rivalling those of 
 Chantilly, where the great Conde entertained kings, one 
 hundred and fifty horses, fit steeds for Goliah, are objects 
 of as careful attention, as those, perhaps, which surrounded 
 the persons of the first Electors and their gallant knights. 
 The old tun has been empty for a century and a half; the 
 curious may enter it, and take its measure ; once only has 
 M. de Graimbert seen it spout wine ; it was in 1813, in
 
 28 LETTER I. 
 
 honour of the emperor Alexander and his allies, the sove- 
 reigns of Austria and Prussia. Even then it was only a 
 pious fraud, the old tun was not full, the wine flowed from 
 a base barrel which had been stuck in it the night before. 
 The ninety-nine vats of Barclay, Perkins & Co. are always 
 full of beer ; that which is daily drawn off, and sent all 
 over the United Kingdom and North America, and finds 
 its way even to the East Indies, would fill the classical 
 tun of the Palatine Casimir.* The secret of this con- 
 trast may easily be explained ; the great feudal tun could 
 only be filled by the produce of the feudal impositions, 
 whilst the vats of the brewery are filled by the voluntary 
 co-operation of three hundred men, sure of gathering daily 
 the fruits of their industry ; the Heidelberg tun was emp- 
 tied only to administer to the pleasures of the prince or 
 his favorites, while the vats of the brewer quench the 
 thirst of a numerous population, which works hard, re- 
 ceives good pay, and pays its providers well. 
 
 The silence and desolation of the old castle, contrasted 
 with the bustle and prosperity of the English brewery, 
 are a striking emblem of the feudal system compared with 
 the modern power of peace and creative industry. All 
 nations, in proportion as they have the power to change 
 the warlike qualities of the feudal age into the useful 
 qualities of the labourer, or as they want the capacity thus 
 to re-cast themselves, may read their own destiny, either 
 in the state of the flourishing manufactory, or in that of 
 the deserted and crumbling castle. Happy the people, 
 who, like France and England, have had strength to shake 
 off the past, and who, in the quiet enjoyment of their 
 liberties, have only to concern themselves about the future ! 
 Woe to th?t people, which will not, or cannot, tear itself 
 away from the past ! That people is worn out ; it will 
 
 * 50,000 gallons.
 
 LIVERPOOL AND THE RAILROAD. 2$ 
 
 die of consumption, and will leave behind nothing but 
 ruins, poetical, perhaps, but still none the less ruins, that 
 is, death and desolation : unless indeed a new blood be 
 infused into its veins, or in other words, unless it be con- 
 quered like unhappy Poland. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 LIVERPOOL AND THE RAILROAD. 
 
 LIVERPOOL, Nov. 7, 1833. 
 
 I HAVE just come back from Manchester by the rail- 
 road, which is a fine piece of work ; I know of nothing 
 that gives a higher idea of the power of man. There are 
 impressions which one cannot describe ; such is that of 
 being hurried along at the rate of half a mile a minute, 
 or thirty miles an hour (the speed of the train as we 
 started from Manchester,) without being the least incom- 
 moded, and with the most complete feeling of security, 
 for only one accident has happened since the opening of 
 the road, and that was owing to the imprudence of the 
 individual who perished. You pass over and under roads, 
 rivers, and canals ; you cross other railroads, and a great num- 
 ber of other roads, without any trouble or confusion. The 
 great forethought and spirit of order which in England 
 they suck in with their mothers' milk, preside in every 
 part, and make it impossible that the trains should fall 
 foul of each other, or that the cars should run down un- 
 lucky travellers, or the farmers' wagons ; all along the 
 route are gates, which open and shut at the precise moment
 
 30 LETTER II. 
 
 of time, and watchmen on the look out. How many per- 
 sons in France would be benefitted by this short trip, did 
 it serve only as a lesson of order and forecast ! And then 
 the Mount Olive cut is as well worth seeing as Roland's 
 Breacli ; the Wappfng tunnel will bear a comparison with 
 the caves of Campan ; the dike across Chat Moss seems to 
 me as full of interest as the remains of the most famous 
 Roman ways, not excepting even the Appian itself; and 
 there is a column, which, though only a chimney for a 
 steam-engine, is not, perhaps, less perfect in its proportions 
 than Pompey's Pillar. Many tourists, even persons who 
 have not been made weary of sight-seeing in Switzerland 
 and Italy, would find Chester Bridge, which is not, indeed, 
 on the road, but is nevertheless very near it, quite as wor- 
 thy of a visit as the Devil's Bridge ; not to mention that 
 the burning cinders which the engine strews along the 
 route, might suggest to the traveller, without any great 
 stretch of fancy, the idea of being transported in a fiery 
 car, certainly the most poetical of all vehicles. 
 
 Those who doubt the policy of introducing railroads 
 into France, and think it prudent to wait for more light, 
 cite, among other arguments, the experiments continually 
 making in England to apply locomotive engines to com- 
 mon roads, the success of which, they think, would save 
 the expense of rails. There is no doubt that railroads, 
 like every other new invention, are susceptible of improve- 
 ment ; but they will always be expensive, and while other 
 nations keep up such schools as the Manchester and Liv- 
 erpool railroad, and we stand looking on with folded arms, 
 we shall soon find ourselves, by excess of caution, fallen 
 behind all Europe in manufactures and commerce. As 
 for the steam-engines of Gurney, Dance, or anybody else, 
 there is no hope that they will enable us to save the ex- 
 pense of rails. I think it, indeed, very probable that 
 engines may be made to take the place of horses on roads
 
 LIVERPOOL AND THE RAILROAD. 31 
 
 kept in such a state as the English highways ; but upon 
 any road whatsoever, and whatever motive power is em- 
 ployed, engines or horses, in order to reach a great speed, 
 from twenty five to thirty miles an hour, for instance, it is 
 absolutely necessary to cut through hills, and to fill up or 
 bridge over the valleys, just as is done for railroads. Be- 
 sides this great speed forbids the free circulation of vehi- 
 cles, and makes it necessary to avoid the level of the 
 frequented routes, and to pass over or under them by means 
 of tunnels or bridges. None of the inconveniences, or 
 liabilities of railroads would be avoided by this system ; 
 the expense would be almost the same, for the most costly 
 portion of the work in railroads is the cuts and embank- 
 ments, the bridges and viaducts ; the iron required for the 
 rails forms less than one-third of the expenditure. The 
 expenses of superintending the routes would be the same. 
 Besides, the road once graded, there would be a great gain 
 in laying rails, that is, in making a complete railroad, 
 however little might be the amount of transportation ; for 
 on a Macadamised road the force of friction is ten times 
 that on iron rails, so that the use of these new locomotive 
 carriages can never supply the place of railways. 
 
 The correctness of these views is proved by what is 
 now doing in England ; while the new steam carriages 
 are getting ready for regular service, railroad companies 
 are already at work or are organizing in all quarters. Two 
 works are now in progress which will connect Liverpool 
 with London, by way of Birmingham ; the whole length 
 will be one hundred and ninetyfive miles. Although a 
 trial of the new carriages is making on the Birmingham 
 road, shares in the railroad between that town and London 
 are at a high premium. Another company is preparing to 
 construct a railroad from London to Bath and Bristol, a 
 distance of one hundred and fifteen miles ; companies are 
 also formed for connecting London with Southampton, on
 
 32 LETTER II. 
 
 the Havre route to Paris, and with Brighton, on the Dieppe 
 route ; other shorter works are projected. It is not that 
 the experiments of Gurney and Dance are unknown or 
 slighted ; on the contrary, their importance is fully felt ; 
 the newspapers are full of them, and they even excite 
 some enthusiasm. In this country, where it is a settled 
 maxim that the labourer is worthy of his hire, I saw vessels 
 all along the road which had been gratuitously brought 
 and filled by the inhabitants for the use of one of these 
 steam-carriages ; unluckily the carriage did not arrive 
 when it was expected ; it had got out of order, as it too 
 often does. 
 
 The Liverpool and Manchester railroad owes its brilliant 
 success to the substantial and permanent nature of the 
 interest which binds together the two towns. It would 
 be impossible to realize a more complete division of labor ; 
 Manchester, with the country twenty miles round it, is 
 nothing but a workshop ; Liverpool manufactures nothing, 
 but merely sells what her neighbours produce. Liverpool 
 is not, whatever the guide book may say, another Venice, 
 rising from the waves ; it is a counting-house, and noth- 
 ing but a counting-house, though on a vast scale, 
 and under the most perfect regulations, of any in the 
 world. The business is all done in a space smaller 
 than the Place du Carrousel, where are the handsome 
 Exchange, the Town House, and all the banking houses, 
 &c. At four or five o'clock each one shuts up his cell (for 
 the offices deserve this name), and retires to his house or 
 his country seat, for many of the residences are on the 
 other side of the Mersey. Liverpool and Manchester are 
 surrounded by a double and three fold series of canals ; the 
 Duke of Bridgewater's canal, the Leeds and Liverpool, 
 the Sankey, Leigh, Bolton and Bury, Mersey and Irwell 
 canals, without taking into account the rivers Irwell, Mer- 
 sey, and Weaver, which though small, form fine bays at 

 
 LIVERPOOL AND THE RAILROAD. 33 
 
 their mouths, and are more easily and regularly navigable 
 than our great rivers, while the navigation is carried on 
 with a promptitude and despatch wholly unknown in 
 France. Since the peace these two towns have enjoyed 
 such a high degree of prosperity, that ten years ago these 
 means of communication, with the addition of a fine road, 
 were found to be insufficient. The counting-house and 
 the manufactory wished to be nearer to each other ; ac- 
 cordingly, on the 10th of May, 1824, a memorial, signed 
 by one hundred and fifty merchants, declared the necessity 
 of new routes ; and a railroad was decided on. The work 
 was begun in June, 1826, and the road was opened in due 
 form, on the 15th of September, 1830. A tunnel is now 
 constructing, one mile and a quarter in length, which will 
 carry the railroad into the heart of the town, and will cost 
 about 800,000 dollars. 
 
 The chief article of English commerce, that in which 
 it has no rival, and which opens all the ports of the world 
 to English vessels, is cottons of all descriptions. The 
 value of the produce and manufactures annually exported 
 from the United Kingdom,' during the last ten years, has 
 averaged 190 millions of dollars.* That of cottons alone 
 has ranged from 80 to 90 millions, and the greater part is 
 made in- Manchester and the vicinity, f This single fact 
 would sufficiently explain the commercial importance of 
 Liverpool ; add to this that Liverpool is in the neighbour- 
 hood of the founderies and forges of Staffordshire and 
 Shropshire, and the manufactories of Birmingham and 
 
 "The annual exports of France are little more than half this sum. (See 
 Note 3, at the end of the volume.) 
 
 t The population of Lancashire, in which are situated Liverpool and 
 Manchester, increased, between 1801 and 1831, from 672,731 to 1.336,854, 
 that is, it doubled. The increase of population in the rest of the United 
 Kingdom waa only fifty per cent. 
 
 5
 
 34 LETTER II. 
 
 Sheffield ; that the diminished width of the island, in the 
 53d degree of latitude, enables her to reach out her hands at 
 once to the eastern and western coasts ; that she is the cen- 
 tre of the business between England and Ireland ; that 
 she approaches, at the same time, Scotland and Wales ; that 
 she is the head quarters of steam navigation in England, 
 and it will be seen at a glance that Liverpool is the 
 seat of a prodigious commerce, inferior only to that of 
 London. Eleven thousand vessels measuring 1,400,000 
 tons, enter her nine docks every year ; two-fifths of the 
 whole exports of England are shipped hence, and more than 
 one-fifth of the British customs duty, or nearly 20,000,000 
 dollars (equal to the total sum of the French customs), are 
 collected here. Since the modification of the East India 
 Company's charter, the Liverpool merchants flatter them- 
 selves with the hope of securing a great part of the India 
 trade, which has hitherto been monopolized by London ; 
 they aspire to rival the commerce of the capital, and it 
 must be confessed that they are taking the right road to 
 success. 
 
 In tracing the history of Liverpool, Manchester, or any 
 other English town, we are struck with a fact which is 
 full of good omen for France ; it is this, that a people never 
 engages heartily and successfully in commerce and manu- 
 factures, until it feels itself safe from civil or religious 
 despotism ; but once assured on that point, it moves rapid- 
 ly and right forward in its industrial career. So long as 
 England was restrained in her franchises or her faith, she 
 was possessed with one idea, how to throw off the 
 yoke ; once freed from this care, she has achieved in the 
 different branches of industry what no nation has ever 
 done before. In the beginning of the last century, 
 not long after the expulsion of the Stuarts, when Liv- 
 erpool had only 5,000 inhabitants, with no commerce 
 but a feeble coasting trade, some of her merchants con-
 
 LIVERPOOL AND THE RAILROAD. 35 
 
 ceived the idea of competing with Bristol, which then 
 monopolized the. West Indian trade. Bristol exported to 
 America the products of the fisheries in the German 
 Ocean, and some fustians and checks manufactured in 
 Germany, and the Liverpool adventurers took cargoes of 
 Scotch stuffs; but the attempt was unsuccessful, the 
 Scotch goods were of inferior quality. Manchester then 
 relieved them from this difficulty; there were already 
 some manufacturers in that place, who imitated and sur- 
 passed the German articles, and thus provided, the mer- 
 chants of Liverpool were able to sustain a competition 
 with those of Bristol. The smuggling trade with the 
 Spanish colonies, and the slave trade, undertaken in com- 
 petition with Bristol, continued to enrich Liverpool and 
 consequently Manchester. In 1764, when Bristol fitted 
 out 32 ships for Africa and 74 for America, Liverpool ran 
 105 to the former and 141 to the latter ; in the same year 
 1589 vessels entered the port of Liverpool, while only 
 675 arrived at Bristol. At present Bristol is a second-rate 
 mart compared with Liverpool ; not that the former has 
 declined ; on the contrary, it is a wealthy city, with a 
 trade tenfold what it was a hundred years ago. But in 
 the midst of the general progress, Liverpool has advanced 
 at high -speed. It now contains 180,000 inhabitants, or, 
 including the suburbs, 225,000, without reckoning the 
 floating population of strangers and sailors. During the 
 siege of Calais, when Edward III. collected all the strength 
 of England, this town found it difficult to furnish one 
 vessel, carrying six men ; in 1829, it owned 806 vessels 
 of 161,780 tons burthen, manned by 9,091 sailors. (See 
 Note 4, at the end of the volume.) During the wars of 
 the French Revolution, Liverpool was able to bear her 
 share of the burdens of the country, and to spend 170,000 
 dollars annually in works of public utility and in embel- 
 lishing the town. In 1797 she volunteered to raise a troop
 
 36 LETTER II. 
 
 of horse and eight companies of foot at her own charge ; 
 in 1798 she raised a regiment of volunteers and the sum 
 of 80,000 dollars, and in 1803, when Napoleon threatened 
 England with invasion, two regiments of infantry and 
 600 artillerists. In the same period a host of useful 
 and charitable institutions were founded by subscription, 
 and the Exchange was built at the cost of 600.000 
 dollars. All this is the work of one century ; hardly had 
 James II. reached Saint Germain, when the first dock in 
 Liverpool was opened ; within thirty years the Mersey and 
 Irwell were canalled. It was the same throughout Eng- 
 land. We must not exaggerate and abuse historical paral- 
 lels, but, unless we shut our eyes, it is impossible not to 
 perceive a striking analogy between the state of England 
 after the fall of the Stuarts, and that of France since 
 1830. With both people there is a feeling of profound 
 security in regard to their liberties, a deep conviction 
 that they have gained a decisive victory, and that they 
 have nothing to fear from the encroachments of the civil 
 power or of a religious corporation ; the same wish to see 
 political reforms gives rise to substantial and palpable im- 
 provement in the condition of the people, and the same 
 disposition on the part of the government to enlighten and 
 realize the popular will. 
 
 The old dynasties of England and France fell in con- 
 sequence of their efforts to give political power to the 
 clergy, rather than from any attempt to restore the feudal 
 system with its brutality and its rapacity ; for the deposed 
 princes themselves were neither rapacious nor violent. 
 The English revolution, however, was far from giving 
 birth to irreligion ; Liverpool, which is, so to speak, of 
 to-day, which bears the stamp, not of England as she was 
 in the sixteenth or the fourteenth century, but of England 
 as she was in the eighteenth century, as she is in our 
 own time, Liverpool is a proof of this. There is no town
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BANK. 37 
 
 in France which numbers as many churches as Liverpool, 
 where there are thirtyseven of the establishment, in addi- 
 tion to fortythree dissenters' chapels and meeting houses, 
 Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Unitarian, Quaker, Jew- 
 ish, and Roman Catholic ; the last have here five cha- 
 pels. Most of these have been built since 1750, and 
 nearly one half since 1800 ; I have a list under my eye, 
 and the dates are 1803, 1810, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1815, 
 1815, 1816, 1821, 1826, 1826, 1827, 1827, 1830, 1831. 
 Are we to believe that this analogy will hold good on our 
 own soil, and that as she grows rich by industry, France 
 will return to the religious sentiment ? I wish it, I hope it ; 
 we are already past the time when atheism was fashiona- 
 ble in France ; it will not, however, be under the flag of 
 the Anglican church, or of any other protestant sect that 
 France will rally ; she must have a more imposing and 
 pompous worship. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 WAR OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES UPON THE BANK. 
 
 NEW YORK, JANUARY 1, 1834. 
 
 THIS country is now in the crisis of a high industrial 
 fever, which has assumed a political character, and is of a 
 very serious nature ; for the industrial interest; in this 
 country, is the most important. Last year, when the dis- 
 pute between the Northern and Southern States, relative 
 to the tariff was settled, (see Note 5, at the end of
 
 38 LETTER III. 
 
 the volume,) the wise and prudent thanked God, that 
 the danger, which had threatened their country, had 
 been averted ; there seemed to them nothing further to 
 obstruct its triumphant career of conquests over nature, 
 with an ever accelerated rapidity and increased success. 
 A series of causes, to appearance of slight moment, has 
 changed these hopes into fears. Some trifling circum- 
 stances revived the old quarrel between the democratic 
 party, to which the President belongs, and the Bank 
 of the United States, and both sides grew warm. 
 (See Note 6, at the end of the volume.) President 
 Jackson, a man of good intentions and ardent patriotism, 
 but too hasty towards those who venture to contradict 
 him, declared a deadly war against the Bank, and pushed 
 it with all the energy and fury, in the same cut-and-thrust 
 style, that he had the war against the Indians and English 
 twenty years before. He set his veto to the bill that had 
 passed both houses of Congress, renewing the Bank char- 
 ter, which was about to expire in three years. Not satis- 
 fied with this blow, he withdrew from the hands of the 
 Bank the public money, which, by the provisions of its 
 charter, had been deposited in them, and which gave it 
 the means of very materially extending its operations ; 
 for the excess of the deposits over the exigencies of the 
 government amount to not less than ten millions. The 
 Bank, which had paid to the government a bonus of 
 1,500,000 dollars for the privilege of being the de- 
 pository of the public funds, cried out loudly against this 
 measure, and with good reason, for no one denies, that no 
 institution in the union is better able to meet all its lia- 
 bilities. It has reduced its discounts, first, because the 
 removal of the public deposits has diminished the amount 
 of specie in its vaults, and also, as it declares, whether 
 right or wrong, because its very existence being threatened 
 by the President's veto, it is prudent to restrain the sphere of
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BANK. 39 
 
 its operations, and to prepare in time for the final settlement 
 of its concerns. As this institution takes the lead in the 
 financial world, the other banks, even those to which the 
 public deposits have been transferred, have been obliged, in 
 their turn, to restrict their operations. Not only are they 
 afraid to extend their discounts in proportion to the amount 
 of these deposits, but they are obliged to contract them, 
 because they find themselves, as objects of the favour of 
 government in this respect, in a state of hostility with 
 the Bank of the United States, and it is necessary to be on 
 their guard in the presence of so formidable an adversary. 
 Thus are the sources of credit suddenly dried up. Now 
 credit is the life-blood of the prosperity of the United 
 States ; without credit, the populous towns which are 
 springing up on all sides, as if by magic, the opulent 
 States, which, far away from the Atlantic and beyond the 
 Alleghanies, stretch along the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
 would become a solitary wilderness, savage forests or path- 
 less swamps. The city of New York alone has twenty 
 banks, the annual average discounts of which, during the 
 last eight years, have amounted to one hundred millions. 
 At Paris, where the transactions are certainly more exten- 
 sive than in New York, the discounts of the Bank of 
 France, "in 1831, amounted to 223 million francs, and in 
 1832 to 151 millions.* The amount of the discounts of the 
 Philadelphia banks, in 1831, was 150 millions. A gen- 
 eral shock to credit, however transient, is here more ter- 
 rible than the most frightful earthquake. 
 
 If I did not fear to lengthen out this letter beyond mea- 
 sure, I would give some details concerning the struggle 
 
 " The maximum of the discounts of the Bank of France was in 1810, when 
 it amounted to 710 million francs. In 1813, they were 640 millions, in 
 1826, 689 millions ; at these two periods the Bank made a great effort to 
 sustain commerce. It had less courage in the crisis of 183132.
 
 40 LETTER 111 
 
 between the two parties, concerning their tactics and their 
 measures in Congress and out of it, concerning Mr Clay's 
 speeches and General Jackson's home thrusts. But 1 think 
 it more important at present, to call your attention to the 
 part which the Bank of the United States has played since 
 its establishment, and to the causes which stirred up 
 against it that mass of hatred and distrust, from which 
 General Jackson derives confidence in his measures. For 
 it is not merely his own dislike that he gratifies ; from the 
 last elections, which in almost all the States are based on 
 universal suffrage, it is plain that the numerical majority 
 of the population is, at this moment, opposed to the 
 Bank. 
 
 The Americans had already used and abused systems of 
 credit while under the English rule. As soon as they had 
 achieved their independence, they became bolder in their 
 enterprises, more sanguine, or, if you please, more rash in 
 their speculations. They stood in great need of credit ; 
 the number of banks was multiplied, and many abuses 
 crept in. The State legislatures made no difficulty in 
 granting bank-charters to whoever asked for them, and in 
 this respect they have not changed their practice. If they 
 imposed some restraints, they had no means of ascertain- 
 ing or securing their strict observance. The banks, there- 
 fore, often issued an amount of bills wholly disproportion- 
 ate to their real capital, not merely twice or thrice, but ten 
 times the value' of their specie and other means. The 
 originators of the bank often chose themselves directors, 
 and discounted no paper but their own, or rather they lent 
 to themselves the whole circulation of the bank, on the 
 bare deposit of the bank shares. This was an ingenious 
 process to enable whoever pleased to coin current money, 
 without ingots of gold or silver. The mismanagement of 
 these banking companies has sometimes been such, that 
 instances have occurred where the officers of the bank
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BANK. 41 
 
 have, on their own authority, opened a credit for them- 
 selves, and generally admitted their friends to share in the 
 privilege. Thus it was discovered, that the cashier of the 
 City Bank in Baltimore had lent himself 166,548 dollars, 
 and had made loans to one of his friends to the amount of 
 185,382 dollars ; all the other officers had taken the same 
 liberty, with the exception of one clerk and the porter. 
 The banks abusing the privilege of issuing bills, that is 
 to say of making loans, individuals abused the privilege 
 of borrowing ; hence mad speculations, and consequently 
 losses by the lender and borrower. The banks cloaked 
 theirs by new issues of paper, individuals theirs by new 
 loans ; but there were many failures of speculators, and 
 some of banks. The latter excited the public indignation 
 without reforming any one. The honest and moderate 
 working classes, the farmers* and mechanics, who found 
 that in the end they were the dupes of the speculators, 
 since by the depreciation of the paper money, which they 
 had taken as so much specie, they came in for a share of 
 the loss, but had no part in the gain, that is, in the divi- 
 dends, conceived a violent hatred against the banking sys- 
 tem, To this particular cause of dislike, was added that 
 aversion which may be found in Europe and everywhere 
 else, felt by persons of methodical habits, gaining little by 
 hard labour, but gaining regularly, against those who are im- 
 patient to make their fortune, and to make it at all events, and 
 who waste what they make in the most unbounded luxury 
 and by the most foolish enterprises, in less time than they 
 have been in acquiring it. Then there was the natural jeal- 
 ousy pf simplicity against cunning, of slow and heavy 
 minds against the shrewd penetration of others. There 
 
 * The Americans have retained the English word farmer, which proper- 
 ly signifies one who cultivates a hired soil, fermier, although among them 
 the cultivators are proprietors. 
 
 6
 
 42 LETTER III. 
 
 was also that suspicious distrust of all new influences, and 
 all power that aims to strike its roots deep, a distrust, which 
 is essential to the American, and which is the source, ex- 
 planation, and safe-guard of his republican institutions. In 
 short, in 1811, when the old Bank of the United States, 
 which was on a much smaller scale than the present Bank, 
 petitioned Congress for a renewal of its charter, an appeal 
 was made to the farmers and mechanics, and, as at the 
 present day, the hobgoblin of a new aristocracy, and the 
 worst of all, an aristocracy of money, was summoned up ; 
 the petition was not granted. 
 
 Soon after, in 1812, war broke out between England 
 and the United States. The natural effect of war is to 
 diminish confidence, to make the merchants timid, specu- 
 lators cautious. Most of the banks, having been managed 
 with little prudence in better times, were soon unable to 
 meet the call for specie by the public ; they solicited and 
 obtained from their respective legislatures leave to suspend 
 specie payments. Their bills had a forced circulation. At 
 the peace of 1815 the banks were not able to resume 
 specie payments, and the system of inconvertible paper 
 money was persevered in. Imagine then two hundred 
 and fortysix classes of paper money,* circulating side by 
 side, having all degrees of value, according to the good 
 or bad credit of the bank which issued them, at 20 
 per cent., 30 per cent., or 50 per cent, discount. Gold 
 and silver had entirely disappeared ; there was no longer 
 any standard of price and value ; the amount of bills in 
 circulation had become prodigious.f To the bills of the 
 banks was added a great amount of individual obligations 
 of still less value, issued by private persons as suited their 
 wants, and which circulated more or less freely in the 
 
 * The number of banks at that time. 
 
 t There was more paper in circulation in 1816 than in 1834, when the 
 extent and value of business were very much greater.
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BANK. 43 
 
 neighbourhood. It was a frightful scene of confusion, a 
 Babel, where all business became impracticable from the 
 utter impossibility of the parties understanding each other. 
 It was now felt that, to restore order in the bosom of 
 this chaos, there was needed a regulating power, capable 
 of commanding confidence, with ample funds to enable it 
 to pay out specie freely, and whose presence and, in case 
 of necessity, whose authority, should serve to recall the 
 local banks to their duty. In 1816, the present Bank of 
 the United States was, therefore, chartered by Congress 
 for a term of 20 years, with a capital of 35 millions, and it 
 went into operation on the 1st of January, 1817. The seat 
 of the mother-bank is Philadelphia, and it has 25 branches 
 scattered over the Union. By its interference and assistance 
 specie payments were resumed by the New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Norfolk Banks on the 20th 
 February, 1817, and in course of time all the other Banks 
 followed the example. This resumption of specie pay- 
 ments was, first for the banks and then for individuals, 
 the signal, the occasion, the rule of a general settling up 
 of old accounts. As there had been much prodigality, 
 unsuccessful speculations, and dead loss, accumulated 
 through a period of 20 years, there was now a complete 
 breaking up ; many banks failed? or suspended their opera- 
 tions, and from 1811 to 1830, 165 banks were reduced to 
 one or the other of these alternatives. This state of things 
 lasted three years ; they were three years of crisis, three 
 years of suffering for industry, that is, for the people of 
 the United States ; for this people is identified with its 
 commerce. The trials of this period have left a deep and 
 lasting impression. Hatred of speculators and of the 
 Banking system has taken root in the hearts of the mass 
 of the people, and now springs up in hostility to the Bank 
 of the United States, which, in the eyes of the multitude, 
 is the representative of the system, although it is itself 

 
 44 LETTER III. 
 
 innocent of the mischief, and can alone prevent its re- 
 currence. 
 
 The antipathy of the greatest number against the banks 
 has then a reasonable cause, but it is not, therefore, any 
 the less blind and unjust. They see nothing but abuses, 
 and shut their eyes against the advantages. The great 
 extension of credit, which resulted from the great number 
 of banks, and from the absence of all restraint on their 
 proceedings, has been beneficial to all classes, to the far- 
 mers and mechanics not less than to the merchants. The 
 banks have served the Americans as a lever to transfer to 
 their soil, to the general profit, the agriculture and manu- 
 factures of Europe, and to cover their country with roads, 
 canals, factories, schools, churches, and, in a word, with 
 every thing that goes to make up civilization. Without 
 the banks, the cultivator could not have had the first ad- 
 vances, nor the implements necessary for the cultivation 
 of his farm, and if the credit system has given facilities 
 for stock-jobbing to speculators, it has also enabled him, 
 although indirectly, to buy at the rate of one, two, or 
 three dollars an acre, and to cultivate lands, which are 
 now, in his hands, worth tenfold or a hundred fold their 
 first cost. The mechanics who attack the banking sys- 
 tem, forget that they owe to it that growth of manufactu- 
 ring industry, which has raised their wages from one dol- 
 lar to two dollars a day. They forget that it furnishes the 
 means by which many of their number raise themselves 
 to competence or wealth ; for in this country every enter- 
 prising man, of a respectable character, is sure of obtain- 
 ing credit, and thenceforth his fortune depends upon his 
 own exertions.* 
 
 * The mechanics and farmers have no credit open at the banks, but the 
 traders from whom they buy their tools, implements, raw material, and pro- 
 visions, haviag that advantage, are able to deal with them on favourable 
 terms ; the farmer and mechanic are thus benefitted indirectly, if not imme- 
 diately, by the banks.
 
 WAR AGAINST THE BANK. 45 
 
 At the end of 1819, commerce revived, the financial 
 system of the United States seemed settled on a sure 
 basis. Since that time, some shocks have been felt, as 
 in 1822, and in 1825, the latter the reaction of the great 
 English crisis, but in both cases the storm soon passed 
 away. The root of the evil was struck on the day that 
 the Bank of the United States went into operation. This 
 great establishment, which committed some errors at first 
 and paid the penalty, has for a long time been conducted 
 with the most consummate prudence. Most of the lead- 
 ing commercial men, that is to say, most of the talents, of 
 the country are attached to it as directors, and its foreign 
 correspondents or associates are the houses whose credit 
 is most firmly established, such as the Barings of London, 
 and the Hottinguers of Paris. It exercises the necessary 
 control over all the local banks, obliges them to restrain their 
 emissions by calling upon them for specie, or by refusing 
 to receive their bills when the issues are excessive. It 
 was by its agency that the currency of the United States 
 was established on so large a basis, that, in 1831, the 
 banks were able, without any effort, to discount the 
 amount of 800.000,000 dollars, in the principal cities of 
 the Union, or 1,100,000,000 for the whole country. 
 
 Now, .this state of prosperity seems to be coming to an 
 end. Here, in New York, the banks have ceased to dis- 
 count, and on good paper, for two or three months, 15, 18, 
 and 24 per cent, per annum have been paid, the usual rate 
 of the Bank of the United States, and of most of the local 
 banks, being 6 per cent. At Philadelphia, 18 per cent, 
 per annum has been given on excellent paper at short 
 dates. At Baltimore, merchants of great wealth have 
 been obliged to stop payment. Nobody buys ; nobody 
 can sell. Orders for foreign goods are held back ; and 
 as every body here is engaged in business, this state of 
 things threatens all interests, is the subject of all conver-
 
 46 LETTER IV. 
 
 sations, of all writing, and of all thoughts. God grant 
 that the sight of the impending danger may calm the pas- 
 sions, and that the good sense of the community may 
 banish empty prejudices and false fears ! God grant that 
 both parties may forget their mutual animosities in their 
 anxiety for the common welfare ! This should be our 
 prayer, not only for the sake of the destinies of this great 
 nation, but also because our silk manufacturers and the 
 owners of our vineyards, will pay a part of the expenses 
 of the campaign against the banks in general, which the 
 radical party is about to open, by a mortal contest, with 
 the Bank of the United States. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 DEMOCRACY THE BANK. 
 
 NEW YORK, JANUART 11, 1834. 
 
 THE financial crisis brought on by the quarrel between 
 the President and the Bank, has not become more serious ; 
 there is a great scarcity of money, that is, a great diminu- 
 tion of credit, but the failures are not yet numerous or 
 considerable. The last arrivals from Europe have brought 
 us the news that several of the trades in Paris and at 
 Lyons have refused to work. What is taking place here 
 in regard to the Bank, is analogous to what is passing in 
 Prance among the tailors, bakers, and carpenters, and 
 what occurs daily in England among the manufacturing 
 operatives. In Europe, and particularly in France, it is 
 the rising of a democracy or rather a radicalism, which is
 
 DEMOCRACY THE BANK. 47 
 
 yet in embryo, and which, if it please God, will never 
 come to maturity. In America, it is the despotic humour 
 of a full grown democracy, passing more and more into 
 radicalism, the longer it rules without a rival and without 
 a counterpoise. 
 
 It seems to me improbable that the journeymen carpen- 
 ters, tailors, and bakers of Paris, should ever give the law 
 to their masters. Among us, the middling class (bour- 
 geoisie] is beginning to feel that it is its duty to improve the 
 condition of the working class. It has the authority, but 
 it is conscious that the people has the physical force. 
 The people has counted its own ranks and those of the 
 bourgeoisie, but it feels that it is not enough to have the 
 number it sees that it has nothing to expect from vio- 
 lence, and that it can back its friends only by improved 
 habits of order and morality. On both sides their reciprocal 
 rights are mutually acknowledged ; each fears and res- 
 pects the other. Here, on the contrary, it is perfectly 
 natural that the democracy should rule the capitalists, 
 merchants, and manufacturers ; it possesses at once the 
 physical force and the political power ; the middling and 
 upper classes inspire it neither with fear nor with respect. 
 The equilibrium is gone ; there is no guarantee against 
 the popular caprice in the United States, but the good 
 sense of the people ; it must be allowed that this good 
 sense is quite extraordinary, but it is not infallible. A 
 popular despotism is as easily deluded by flatterers, as any 
 other despotism. 
 
 The Bank of the United States is at this time experi- 
 encing the truth of this observation. I have already allu- 
 ded to some of the crying abuses which have excited a 
 violent hatred against the banks in general, although with- 
 out the aid of the banks it would have been impossible 
 for the United States to have increased in population, 
 wealth, and territory as they have done. These abuses
 
 48 LETTER IV. 
 
 were and are the acts of the local banks, and not of the 
 Mammoth Bank. On the contrary, the latter, by the con- 
 trol which it exercises over the local banks for its own se- 
 curity, checks and limits these abuses, if it does not com- 
 pletely prevent them. The legislatures of the different 
 States have been repeatedly called to deliberate on the 
 question of abolishing all banks and breaking up the 
 banking system ; but they have generally thought, and 
 justly, that the remedy would be worse than the disease. 
 They have attempted to cure the disorder by restrictive 
 provisions in the charter of new banks. The State of 
 of New York, in 1829, embraced the whole subject in 
 the Safety-Fund Act, which established a mutual supervi- 
 sion of the banks over each other, under the direction of 
 the Bank Commissioners, and creates at their common ex- 
 pense a safety fund, designed to indemnify the public in 
 case of the failure of any one of the banks. But these 
 measures of repression or prevention have generally proved 
 inefficacious, either from a defect in the means of coer- 
 cion possessed by the government, or from a reluctance to 
 use the powers conferred by the laws. 
 
 In their report of the 31st of January, 1833, the New 
 York Bank Commissioners urgently call the attention of 
 the legislature to the serious dangers which may result 
 from these institutions as they are now organized, parti- 
 cularly in the country, and to their excessive issues in pro- 
 portion to the small quantity of specie in their vaults. 
 With two millions in specie, the banks of the State had, 
 at that time, a circulation of above twelve millions. But 
 this report itself proves, that the commissioners did not 
 dare to fulfil the duties imposed on them by the Safety- 
 Fund act ; they had the authority to shut up the offend- 
 ing banks. Their warnings have not prevented the legis- 
 lature from chartering new banks by the dozen. This 
 year it will have to act on 105 petitions for charters, that
 
 DEMOCRACY THE BANK. 49 
 
 is, eighteen more than the actual number of banks in the 
 State. To be sure in the present instance, the let alone 
 principle will probably be violated, for the Governor's 
 Message of January 7, 1834, urges the two houses to 
 arrest the flood. This Bank mania, as Jefferson called 
 it, is created by the profits of banking, which is, and 
 more especially was, before the institution of the Bank of 
 the United States, the best kind of speculation, exactly in 
 the ratio of the abuses attending it.* 
 
 In the local banks, especially in the country banks, the 
 chief aim of the president and directors is, at all events, 
 come what may, to make the semi-annual dividend as large 
 as possible. By extending their operations excessively, 
 they may, if they lose the public confidence, be driven to 
 a failure ; but in the United States the prospect of such a 
 disaster is much less terrible to the greater number of 
 merchants, and even to the smaller companies, than it is 
 in Europe. (See Note 7, at the end of the volume.) 
 When a bank fails, there is, indeed, a great outcry, because 
 the number of victims is large, and the loss extends to all 
 classes ; for most of .the bills being of the denomination 
 of five dollars and under, they are very generally distri- 
 buted in the hands of the labourers, as well as of the wealth- 
 ier classes. But just in proportion to the distribution of 
 
 * The dividends of the Bank of North America were, in 1792, 15 per 
 cent.; in 1793, 13 1-2; from 1794 to 1799 inclusive, 12 per cent.; from 1804 
 to 1810, 9 per cent. Those of the old Bank of the United States varied 
 from 7 5-8 to 10 per cent. Those of the Pennsylvania Bank, from 1792 to 
 1810, from 8 to 10. The Bank of the United States regularly divides 7 
 per cent, to the share-holders. In the city of New York the average divi- 
 dends of the banks in 1832, was 6.14 per cent. ; of the country banks 
 9 per cent. It must not be forgotten that the legal rate of interest is 
 higher in the United States than in Europe ; it is 6 per cent, in Pennsylvania, 
 7 in New York, from 8 to 9 in the Southern States, and 10 in Louisiana. 
 In the Western States there is no regulation of interest by law, but the or- 
 dinary rate is very high. 
 7 

 
 50 LETTER IV. 
 
 the loss over the greater number of persons, is the quick- 
 ness with which the clamor ceases. The president, the 
 cashier, the directors, and others principally interested, 
 readily find means to recover from the blow, by obtaining 
 credit elsewhere, and the whole affair is at an end. 
 
 The Bank of the United States, on the contrary, 
 directed by men of large fortune and established reputation, 
 connected in business with the principal houses in Europe, 
 charged with a vast responsibility, subject to the super- 
 vision of the Federal government, which names five of 
 the directors out of twenty five, and officiously watched 
 by an army of journalists, is interested and obliged to 
 follow another course. Not that it has not committed 
 some errors ; but it paid dear for them, and has never re- 
 peated them. Neither are its rules and regulations perfect ; 
 the experience of twenty years will doubtless suggest some 
 modifications. But even its adversaries admit that it has 
 been admirably managed. They pretended, at first, that 
 the public money was not safe in its vaults, but they are 
 at present ashamed to insist upon this point, as the inves- 
 tigation made by the House of Representatives proved the 
 absurdity of the charge. The accusations now brought 
 against it are of a political character. 
 
 Politically considered, indeed, the existence of an in- 
 stitution so powerful as the Bank of the United States, 
 may present some inconveniences. The fundamental 
 maxim of the Federal and State constitutions is, that the 
 supreme authority is null and void ; there is no govern- 
 ment here in the true sense of the word ; that is, no 
 directing power. Each one is his own master ; it is self- 
 government in all its purity. This anomalous and mon- 
 strous development of the individual principle is no evil 
 here, it is even a great good at present ; it is the present 
 stage in the progress of the United States, because self- 
 government is the only form of government to which the
 
 DEMOCRACYTHE BANK. 51 
 
 American character, as it is, can accommodate itself. If 
 individuality had not free elbow-room here, this people 
 would fall short of its destiny, which is to extend its con- 
 quests rapidly over an immense territory, for the good of 
 the whole human race, to substitute, in the shortest time 
 possible, civilization for the solitude of the primitive forests, 
 over a surface ten times greater than all France, of as great 
 average fertility as that country, and capable, therefore, of 
 accommodating 350 millions of inhabitants. 
 
 From these considerations it is clear, that any power 
 whatsoever, if possessed of great influence, and exercising 
 it over a great space, would be inconsistent with the poli- 
 tical system of the country ; for this reason the Federal 
 and State governments are in a permanent state of eclipse. 
 And it is furthermore evident, that the Bank, which is met 
 at every turn as an agent in all transactions, which governs 
 credit, regulates the currency, animates or checks at will 
 the activity of commerce by narrowing or widening the 
 channels of circulation, the Bank, which by its numerous 
 branches is, like the fabled polypus, everywhere present, 
 the Bank with its funds, its centralisation, its trusty crea- 
 tures, is certainly an anomaly, which may become big with 
 danger. One might, from an abstract, theoretical point of 
 view, imagine cases, in which this financial colossus, seated 
 in the heart of a country absorbed in business, would 
 press with a crushing weight on the liberties of the people. 
 If it were possible that a new Monk should wish to restore 
 the English rule, or that a new Bonaparte, the saviour of 
 the republic in another Marengo, should attempt to make 
 himself dictator, it would also be possible that a conspiracy 
 between the Bank and this Monk, or this Napoleon, might 
 overthrow the liberties of America. But such an event, 
 possible to be sure in theory, (for in theory nothing is im- 
 possible,) is, at present, wholly impracticable in fact. Yet 
 there are honest and enlightened men, on whom this the-
 
 52 LETTER IV. 
 
 oretical danger makes more impression, than the necessity 
 of a regulator amidst the chaos of 500 banks, or of an 
 agent, which, by controlling the currency, should be in 
 financial affairs, what the vast rivers of the country are in 
 the system of internal communication. They fear more, 
 for this land of industry, from the imperceptible tyranny 
 of the Bank, than from a system in which there would be 
 no check on the cupidity of the local banks, and in which 
 they might renew, with their paper money, if not the 
 assignats of France, or the Continental money of the 
 Revolution, at least the commercial anarchy which followed 
 the war of 1812. 
 
 Unluckily for the United States, it is not on this high 
 ground of foresight, that President Jackson and his friends 
 take their stand in their attack on the Bank. They do 
 not say, that it is possible that it may some time, under a 
 new state of things, become an instrument of oppression ; 
 they pretend that it is so already. According to them, it 
 tends to nothing less than the subjugation of the country 
 to its rule. In his last, annual message, and in an official 
 paper read to the cabinet on the 18th of September, 1833, 
 the President accuses the Bank : 1. With having intrigued 
 to bring up the question of the renewal of its charter in 
 Congress during the session of 183132, in order to reduce 
 him to the alternative of giving his sanction to the bill, or 
 losing the votes of the friends of the Bank in the approach- 
 ing election, if he refused it. He forgets that he had 
 himself, in his message at the opening of that session, 
 recommended to Congress to settle the business. 2. Of 
 having meddled with politics in opposing his election in 
 1832, and of having, with this purpose, enlarged its loans 
 and discounts twentyeight and a half millions. The 
 Bank replies that the statement is incorrect ; that its books 
 show, that its available means having been augmented, 
 between January and May, 1831, ten millions, and the
 
 DEMOCRACY THE BANK. 53 
 
 requisitions of commerce having increased, it had judged 
 it expedient to extend its credits seventeen and a half 
 millions, so that the actual extension of its operations was 
 only four and a half millions. 3. Of having attempted to 
 corrupt the public press, either by printing a great number 
 of pamphlets, or by gaining over the newspapers. The 
 Bank answers to this charge, that it has a perfect right to 
 defend itself by the press, against the continual attacks 
 upon it to which the press gives currency, that it may 
 certainly be allowed to reprint the speeches delivered in 
 its favor in Congress, or essays in which questions of bank- 
 ing are luminously treated, such as that by the celebrated 
 Mr Gallatin, who was twelve years Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and afterward minister to France. As to the 
 vague imputation of attempting to corrupt a press, which 
 pours forth such a number of journals as the press of the 
 United States, (see Note 8, at the end of the volume,) it 
 does not deserve a serious answer. 
 
 If a European government, from motives of this char- 
 acter, on facts thus destitute of proof, should attempt to 
 destroy an institution essential to the prosperity of the 
 country, the cry of despotism would be raised on all sides. 
 If the state were itself interested in the institution to the 
 amount of one fifth of its capital (7 millions of dollars), 
 mariy persons would charge such an attempt not only 
 with violence, but with folly. In the United States the 
 numerical majority, which is the majority of electors, 
 applauded General Jackson's campaign against the Bank 
 almost as enthusiastically as his campaign at New Orleans. 
 The military success of General Jackson, his honesty, his 
 iron firmness, have given him an astonishing popularity. 
 The Bank, on the contrary, in spite of its daily services, 
 (see Note 9, at the end of the volume,) is unpopular ; it is 
 .so on account of the popular hatred of the Banking System, 
 on account of that jealousy, which, in a land of perfect
 
 54 LETTER IV. 
 
 equality and suspicious democracy, follows in the steps of 
 wealth and pomp ; it is so because its extensive privileges 
 shock all republican feelings. In the United States, in 
 spite of the general habits and laws of equality, there is a 
 sort of aristocracy founded on knowledge or on commer- 
 cial distinction. This aristocracy, somewhat prone to en- 
 tertain a contempt, for the vulgar multitude, causes a strong 
 reaction against itself in the popular mind, and as it sup- 
 ports the Bank by its influence and its writings, this is 
 enough, of itself, to set the pure democracy against the 
 institution. Add to this, that the Bank, irritated by the 
 hostile demonstrations of the administration, has sometimes 
 answered it by angry acts of reprisal, not grave in them- 
 selves, but unfortunate in their consequences, and of which 
 its adversaries have adroitly availed themselves to excite 
 the popular passions. Although the Bank has the majority 
 of the Senate in its favor, the chances are now against it. 
 Unless the multitude, which now shouts HURRAH FOR 
 JACKSON ! without reflection, shall be led, between this 
 and March, 1836, when its charter expires, to reflect seri- 
 ously on the matter, it will disappear, until a new experi- 
 ence shall again prove that it is impossible to get along 
 without it. 
 
 Thus, at the very moment when the English Reform 
 ministry is renewing the charter and confirming the priv- 
 ileges of the Bank of England, with the approbation of all 
 Europe, here a compact mass, in which, indeed, the en- 
 lightened do not form the majority, but in which, notwith- 
 standing, some are included, deals the death-blow to a 
 similar institution, tried and proved by long services. 
 Thus, while one of the greatest, perhaps, in an economical 
 point of view, the Very greatest of the benefits which 
 France could receive, would be the establishment of a 
 system of banks, connected with each other as the twenty 
 branches of the Bank of the United States are with the
 
 MOVEMENT OP PARTIES. 55 
 
 mother bank, America is about to witness, if not the 
 death, at least the suspension of an institution, that has 
 been fruitful of so much good, without the slightest im- 
 mediate loss of popularity by those who are doing the 
 work of destruction. So goes the world in the United 
 States. The history of this affair shows that the poli- 
 tical springs are here wholly different from those that ope- 
 rate in Europe, and that nevertheless, intrigue and petty 
 hate have free course here as well as elsewhere. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. BANK QUESTION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, JAN. 5, 1834. 
 
 OF all the cities of the Union, the peaceful Philadelphia 
 is the most disturbed by the Bank question, because it is 
 the seat of the mother bank. The State of Pennsylvania 
 also, of all the States, suffers the most from the financial 
 crisis, because it is the most deeply in debt, and is obliged 
 to borrow more, either to finish its canals and railroads, or 
 to pay the interest on its existing debt. Conceive of the 
 situation of a State, whose population amounts to only 
 1,500,000 souls, loaded with a debt of twenty and a half 
 millions, whose ordinary expenditures are less than 600,000 
 dollars, but which must raise one million to pay interest 
 already accrued, and nearly two millions and a half, for 
 the next summer, under penalty of seeing her great works, 
 executed at an enormous expense, go to ruin, and who 
 knows not whither to turn. This is not. all ; some old
 
 56 LETTER V. 
 
 loans must be reimbursed next May, or in three months, and, 
 to crown the whole, the capitalists who contracted last 
 year for a loan of three millions, to be employed on the 
 public works, are, in consequence of the present crisis, 
 unable to fulfil their contracts. The local banks, which 
 are bound by their charters to lend the State at the rate of 
 5 per cent., rather stand in need of assistance themselves. 
 To these public embarrassments is added the private dis- 
 tress, and thus this country, which Cobbett, who always 
 shows talent, and occasionally gleams of good sense, dubs 
 the Anti-Malthusian, exhibits for the present the spectacle 
 of a superabundance of labourers. In the manufacturing 
 districts of Pennsylvania, many of the operatives are with- 
 out work. 
 
 The condition of the rest of the country is not, in gen- 
 eral, any more favorable. I am very ready to believe that 
 the Anti-Jackson newspapers, for so they call themselves, 
 exaggerate the distress ; but making all due allowance for 
 rhetorical flourishes, it is still undeniable that there is 
 much distress, especially among the commercial class. 
 Bare figures are more eloquent than the best advocates of 
 the Bank, and it is a notorious fact, that excellent paper 
 has been discounted at the rate of 18 per cent, per annum, 
 and at even higher rates, in New York, Philadelphia, and 
 Baltimore. The price currents and the state of the stock- 
 market, show a general fall in prices of 15, 20, 30, and 
 even 40 per cent. Thus far the efforts of the President 
 to fell the hydra of the moneyed aristocracy, the Mammoth, 
 the Monster, have had no other effect than to blast credit 
 and the commercial prosperity of the country ; for the 
 Bank has been administered with so much ability, espe- 
 cially since the presidency of Mr Biddle, one of the most 
 distinguished men in the country, that notwithstanding 
 the abrupt removal of the public deposits, notwithstanding 
 the unexpected and unfair assaults upon some of the
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. 57 
 
 branches, particularly that of Savannah*, it is beyond com- 
 parison the most solvent and safe of all the financial institu- 
 tions in the Union. At this critical moment it has as 
 much specie (ten millions) as all the other 500 banks 
 taken together, and I know from good authority, that 
 many Jackson men (this is the epithet adopted by them- 
 selves), have been very glad to be sprinkled with a few 
 drops of the venom of this dangerous reptile. 
 
 If what is now taking place in this country were to 
 occur in any European monarchy, those persons who in- 
 sist upon all nations having a government cast in the re- 
 publican mould, whatever may be the condition of their 
 territory and population, their wealth and knowledge, 
 their character and manners, would not fail to make it the 
 text of their harangues against monarchical governments ; 
 holding up to view the picture of an unparallelled com- 
 mercial prosperity, checked of a sudden by the caprice of 
 the sovereign, they would prove that such is one of the 
 unavoidable consequences of an opposition between the 
 interest of the ruler and the welfare of the nation ; they 
 would demonstrate by geometrical syllogisms, that it is the 
 essence of monarchy to place authority in the hands of the 
 weak and the foolish, who, to gratify their personal malice, 
 would not hesitate to hazard the happiness of millions. 
 They would raise the cry of secret influence, of intrigue, 
 which, according to them, is one of the attributes of 
 monarchies. Unluckily for this theory, it is belied by 
 facts under my own eyes, in the most thorough and 
 
 * The Savannah branch had out only 500,000 dollars in bills. The collector 
 of the port accumulated them, as they were received for customs duties, and 
 one day a broker presented himself at the counter with 380,000 dollars in 
 bills, for which he demanded specie ; but the disappearance of the bills of 
 the branch from circulation had not been unnoticed, and funds had been 
 provided for any exigency. Payment was, therefore, instantly made, and 
 the broker, not knowing what to do with so much specie, was obliged to re- 
 quest the cashier to receive it in deposit. 
 
 8 .
 
 58 LETTER V. 
 
 flourishing republic that has ever existed. The selfish- 
 ness of royalty, or more correctly speaking of courts, has 
 hitherto begot much mischief and will continue to do so 
 in future ; but it has met with its match in the bosom 
 of republics, and above all under a system of absolute 
 equality, which distributes political power in absolutely 
 equal quantities to the intelligent and the ignorant, to the 
 most eminent merchant and author, and the brutal and 
 drunken peasant of Ireland, who is but just enrolled in 
 the list of citizens. An absolute people, as well as an 
 absolute king, may reject for a time the lessons of experience 
 and the councils of wisdom ; a people as well as a king, may 
 have its courtiers. A people on the throne, whose author- 
 ity is limited by no checks, may blindly and recklessly 
 espouse the quarrels of the minions of the day ; let those 
 who doubt it come here and see it. Ignorance of the true 
 interests of the country is not the exclusive prerogative of 
 monarchies. The official papers of the Federal Executive 
 in the affair of the Bank, so far as concerns a knowledge 
 of the principles of government and the springs of the 
 public welfare, are on a level with the measures of the 
 government of Spain or Rome. And yet this Executive 
 is the creature of the popular choice in the largest sense. 
 It is not merely in monarchies, that a dancer is to be seen 
 in the post that belongs to a mathematician. The camarilla \ 
 Never have I heard it so much talked about, as since I have 
 been in this country. It is here called the Kitchen Cabinet, 
 and admitting a fourth of what is said by the opposition 
 to be true, it is difficult not to believe that its influence 
 upon public affairs is greater than that of the ministerial 
 cabinet. 
 
 But to return to the Bank. Congress met on the 3d of 
 December ; and most of the State Legislatures are now 
 in session. Every where, and above all in Congress, the 
 great, not to say the only question agitated, is that of the
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. 59 
 
 Bank. The subject of the discussions is the removal of 
 the public deposits, which the President has withdrawn 
 from the Bank after a military fashion, having previously, 
 in the same spirit, removed from office the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, Mr Duane, who, although opposed to the Bank, 
 considered the President's course illegal and rash. Thus 
 far, the manifestations of public opinion and the delibera- 
 tive assemblies are extremely various and discordant. In 
 New Jersey, a small and unimportant State, the Assembly 
 has adopted, by a large majority, resolutions approving the 
 acts of the administration, and instructing its delegates in 
 Congress to support the President ; notwithstanding which, 
 Mr Southard, one of the Senators from that State, has 
 made an excellent speech on the other side of the ques- 
 tion. The Assembly of New York, the first State in 
 wealth and population, has adopted similar resolutions by 
 a vote of 118 to 9. Some persons to be sure, assert that this 
 is because New York would like to have the Mother Bank.* 
 The youthful State of Ohio, whose growth borders on the 
 miraculous (it now contains eleven hundred thousand in- 
 habitants, although but 50 years ago it had not six thou- 
 sand), Ohio, the Benjamin of the democracy, has strongly 
 expressed the same wishes. The little State of Maine 
 has done the same. The administration party lately had 
 a brilliant opportunity of displaying its sympathies and its 
 hatred. The 8th of January, the anniversary of the bat- 
 tle of New Orleans, was celebrated by innumerable public 
 dinners, at each of which numerous toasts were drank. 
 President Jackson was the hero, and the Bank was the 
 scape-goat, of the day. It would be impossible to imagine 
 the flood of accusations, insults, and threats, which was 
 
 * New York is the chief seat of commerce, but Philadelphia is more cen- 
 tral, and is, besides, the city of American capitalists. The removal to New 
 York would also require the transference of the mint and some other public 
 offices to that city, at great expense. 

 
 60 LETTER V. 
 
 poured upon it, mingled with jests in the taste of the 
 country upon Mr Diddle ; thus, at one of these dinners, 
 the Bank was toasted, as being governed by Young Nick 
 according to the principles of Old Nick. , 
 
 But the population of New England, particularly that 
 of Massachusetts, is opposed to the administration. In 
 Virginia the same opinions seems to prevail, and it is the 
 same with several of the old Southern States. The mer- 
 chants and manufacturers of New York, Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, Boston, and a hundred other places, have held 
 meetings and adopted resolutions, strongly censuring the 
 conduct of the government towards the Bank, and accu- 
 sing it of having caused the present crisis. Most of the 
 Philadelphia Banks have petitioned in favor of the Bank. 
 Several Banks at Boston and in Virginia have refused to 
 take the public money in deposit ; those of Charleston 
 have been unanimous in this measure. The majority of 
 persons of intelligence, experience, and moderation, and 
 most of the merchants and manufacturers, are in favour 
 of the Bank. The country, particularly in the Middle 
 and Western States, and the operatives in the towns, go 
 for General Jackson. 
 
 In Congress the majority of the Senate is friendly to 
 the Bank, and the majority of the House is on the side of 
 the Administration. The superiority in debate belongs 
 to the defenders of the Bank. In the Senate, the three 
 greatest statesmen in the country, Messrs Clay, Webster, 
 and Calhoun, are on this side of the question, and the 
 speeches of Messrs Clay and Calhoun have made a strong 
 impression. In the House Mr Binney, of Philadelphia, 
 and Mr McDuffie have pleaded the same cause with 
 ability. On the other side there has been more highflown 
 declamation than reasoning. I have been struck with the 
 resemblance between most of the speeches and newspaper 
 essays directed against the Bank, and our republican tirades
 
 MOVEMENT OP PARTIES. 61 
 
 of 1791 and 1792. There are the same declamatory tone, 
 the same swollen style, the same appeal to the popular pas- 
 sions, with this difference, that the allegations made here 
 are vague, empty, and indefinite, while with us fifty years 
 ago the grievances were real. Most generally the pictures 
 . presented in these declamations, are fantastical delineations 
 of the moneyed aristocracy overrunning the country with 
 seduction, corruption, and slavery in its train ; or of Mr 
 Biddle aiming at the crown. Amidst this swarm of speeches 
 and essays, one hardly ever meets with any indications of 
 serious study or a tolerable knowledge of the subject ; 
 but I have been struck with the speech of Mr Cambre- 
 leng, who has put forth some prudent suggestions as 
 to the reforms required in the present system of banking. 
 For it must be confessed, that this animosity of the Presi- 
 dent and the body of the people against the Bank of the 
 United States, blind and unreasonable as it is, is founded on 
 a real necessity, namely, that of a complete reorganization 
 of the banking system. When Congress renewed the 
 charter of the Bank of the United States without modifi- 
 cation, in 1832, it committed an error. It should have 
 seized this opportunity to place the currency of the coun- 
 try on a more solid basis ; and if General Jackson had 
 abode by the terms of his veto message, in which he de- 
 clared that he was not opposed in principle to the estab- 
 lishment of a National Bank, but that the present Bank 
 could not be retained without some modification, he might 
 have become the benefactor of his country. He would 
 not, indeed, have received Cobbett's congratulations, but 
 he would have obtained the approbation of all statesmen 
 and men of sense in the Old and the New World. How- 
 ever, whatever his friends may say, as the President did 
 not foresee the distress, which has befallen American com- 
 merce, and as nobody can doubt his patriotism, we need 
 need not yet despair of seeing him adopt this wise course.
 
 62 LETTER V. 
 
 The present crisis abundantly proves the wretched con- 
 dition of the currency, for the original cause of it was 
 qu4te slight ; it was merely the transfer from the vaults of 
 one bank to those of another of ten millions, an inconsid- 
 erable sum relatively to the amount of the business of the 
 country. If the local banks, in spite of the control exer- 
 cised by the Bank of the United States, had not previously 
 passed all bounds, they would have been able, when the 
 Bank of the United States was obliged to contract its dis- 
 counts by the withdrawing of the public money, to have 
 enlarged their own in the same proportion, since those 
 same funds were transferred to their vaults. But the frame- 
 work of these banks is so badly put together, that it shakes 
 at the slightest breath. The slight motion in the political and 
 commercial atmosphere caused by the President's blow at 
 the Bank, in removing the public deposits, was enough to 
 make them totter. They are like a colossus with clay feet, 
 which should have feet of gold, or in other words, specie 
 in their vaults. 
 
 The proportion of metals, of which we have an excess 
 in France, is here extremely small. In many States, 
 among others New York, there is an enormous quantity of 
 bills of one, two, and three dollars. In South Carolina 
 there are 25 cent, and even 12 1-2 cent bills. In Penn- 
 sylvania, Virginia, and some other States, there are none 
 of less than five dollars. The Bank of the United States 
 emits none of less than that sum ; but this minimum is 
 too low. Most political economists, and particularly the 
 English, lay it down as an axiom, that the most perfect 
 money is paper ; this is true, if we suppose a nation in 
 which any disturbance of industry, in consequence or 
 apprehension of war, from foolish speculations, from glut 
 or panic, is impossible. In such a land of cockayne, such 
 a terrestrial paradise, an unshaken confidence would pre- 
 vail in all transactions, and consolidate all interests. The
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. 63 
 
 metals would only serve to strike medals and to preserve 
 inscriptions intended to commemorate this ineffable bliss. 
 Paper would there be on a par with gold, and even higher, 
 as some English writers have maintained it should be. I 
 do not know if there will ever be a nation in such a state 
 of heavenly happiness ; but I doubt it, because in the 
 world of finance, as well as in the world of passion, I 
 consider the Tender River a fable, and pastorals a sport of 
 fancy ; but it is very evident that no such people exists 
 now, or will for some time to come. Now in the United 
 States, the present banking system, like that of England 
 from 1797 to 1821, or even 1825, is founded on this the- 
 ory of the most perfect money. It is provided, indeed, 
 that the banks shall pay gold for their paper on demand ; 
 but by the side of this clause, which tends to keep a cer- 
 tain quantity of the metals in the country, is inserted 
 another, which neutralises it ; it is the power of emitting 
 bills in any number, and of the sum of 1, 2, 3, or 5 dol- 
 lars. In prosperous times, the emission of paper is abun- 
 dant, indefinite ; as the necessity of a metallic standard 
 ceases to be felt, in proportion to the confidence which 
 prevails, the metals disappear before the excess of paper ; 
 there is scarcely any left in the country. Since I have 
 been in the United States, I have not seen a piece of gold 
 except in the mint. No sooner is it struck off, than the 
 gold is exported to Europe and melted down. When a 
 crisis comes on, the demand for the precious metals in- 
 creases rapidly, because every one attaches more value to 
 a positive standard than to paper, and the later the appli- 
 cation of the remedy for the scarcity of metals, the longer 
 does the crisis last, and the more serious does it become. 
 
 In a new country, where capital cannot, of course, be 
 abundant, for capital of all kinds, whether of articles of 
 food or precious metals, is the accumulated produce of 
 labour, it is natural, that the proportion of paper money
 
 64 LETTER V. 
 
 should equal and surpass that of metallic money. The 
 existence of paper money is even a great benefit to any 
 country. In France we have the enormous sum of 600 
 million dollars in specie ; (see Note 10, at the end of the 
 volume) ; in the United States 40 millions are sufficient 
 for all the transactions of a commerce nearly as extensive 
 as our own. In England the amount of specie at present 
 does not exceed 220 millions, mostly in gold. Bank notes 
 in circulation, which constitute the rest of the currency, 
 amount at this time, in the United States, to 100 million, 
 that is, two and a half times the amount of specie ; in 
 England to about the same as the specie, which gives for 
 the whole circulation of 
 
 The United States, 140 millions 
 Of England, 440 millions. 
 
 If we had in France the industrial habits of the English 
 and Anglo-Americans, 200 millions of circulating medium, 
 half in paper and half in specie, would probably be suffi- 
 cient for our operations ; but considering our commercial 
 inferiority, suppose that we should require 300 millions, of 
 which two thirds should be metallic, and one third paper, 
 it would follow that we might advantageously employ 
 400 millions, which are now unproductive in the form of 
 specie, and which add nothing to our pleasures, our com- 
 fort, or our industrial capacity. But if we might expect 
 great benefit from banks of circulation and the paper which 
 they would issue, it is evident that the Americans, in the 
 present stage of their wealth, and considering their actual 
 capital, would find their advantage in putting some check 
 upon themselves in this matter. It might then be proper 
 to raise the minimum of bills of the Bank of the United 
 States to 10, 15, or 20 dollars, as in England there is no 
 paper less than the five pound note. The National Bank, 
 if it were powerful enough, would keep the local banks in 
 check, and for this reason it is expedient to increase the
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. 65 
 
 capital. There would then be specie enough in the coun- 
 try for all purposes less than the paper minimum, and in 
 case of any disturbance, the currency would be less readily 
 deranged. 
 
 Nor is this the only point in which the charter of the 
 Bank of the United States requires modification ; its rela- 
 tions with the Federal government, as well as with the 
 State governments, need to be modified ; and some projects 
 worthy of consideration, in this view, have been broached. 
 It would also, probably, be expedient, as Mr Cambreleng 
 has remarked, to change the rules and regulations relating 
 to private and public deposits, and to provide that in future 
 they should bear interest as they do in the Scotch banks. 
 If this system were adopted by all the American banks, 
 they would gain in solidity, and they would embrace the 
 interest of all classes, and become provident institutions 
 for the general good ; while at present their direct profits, 
 the dividends, fall exclusively to the shareholders, who 
 belong to the wealthier classes ; a fact which contributes 
 not a little to their unpopularity. Finally, it would be 
 proper to consider to what degree the immediate advantages 
 of credit might be extended to mechanics and farmers. In 
 this respect the banks are yet absolutely aristocratical in- 
 stitutions, the Americans having preserved in banking 
 almost all the usages of their ancestors, the English. The 
 American banks are now chiefly devoted to the use of 
 speculators and merchants. 
 
 In the midst of so many contradictions, "it is difficult to 
 foresee what will be the issue of the struggle. The 
 friends of the Administration maintain that President 
 Jackson and Vice President Van Buren are not only op- 
 posed to the Bank as it is, but to any National ' Bank, and 
 that they will never yield. The Globe, the avowed organ 
 of the President, has told Mr Clay, that unless he can find 
 a Brutus (to assassinate General Jackson,) the Bank will 
 9
 
 66 LETTER V. 
 
 neither have the deposits nor a new charter. We may 
 doubt, however, whether the President's mind is so deci- 
 sively made up, and after all a majority of both houses 
 can set at nought the veto. As to the Vice President, 
 whom his opponents call the cunning Van Buren, as he 
 aspires to succeed the President, many persons declare that 
 his object is to gain the vote of the powerful State of New 
 York, by transferring thither the seat of the Mother Bank, 
 but that he is too enlightened seriously to wish the de- 
 struction of an institution fraught with so much good to 
 the country. 
 
 However this may be, it would be surprising if the 
 present crisis were not followed, sooner or later, by a 
 reaction in favour of the Bank of the United States with 
 suitable modifications, or of another National Bank, which, 
 as Mr Webster observed, would amount to the same thing, 
 if the shareholders of the present Bank are not sacrificed. 
 The jealous democracy of this country has this advantage 
 over other democracies, that in the main it has much good 
 sense ; the recollection of old sufferings caused by the 
 abuses of the banking system, and a jealousy of all pre- 
 tensions to superiority, have led it to give ear to much 
 noisy declamation about the aristocracy of money, partic- 
 ularly when it has been mixed up with flattery of itself. 
 It may have been led astray for a moment, when its own 
 prerogatives were the subject of discussion, as those sov- 
 ereigns who assert the divine right of kings, take fire in 
 respect to theirs. Proud of its gigantic labours, it may 
 have been tempted to believe, that to it everything was 
 possible and easy, that it had only to frown to cause the 
 Bank to crumble into the dust at its feet, without being 
 itself shaken by the shock. But facts, positive, inexorable 
 facts now bear witness that it was mistaken, that it has trust- 
 ed too much to its powers and its star, that the agency of the 
 Bank of the United States is indispensable. The influence
 
 MOVEMENT OF PARTIES. 67 
 
 of facts has spread step by step even to the country people, 
 who no longer find buyers of their produce. The argument 
 is palpable and effectual ; passion cannot long blind men of 
 sense to such facts, for men of sense are those who do not 
 give themselves up implicitly to abstractions, and who 
 admit that every theory which is point blank against fact, 
 is false or incomplete. This is the reason why good sense 
 is worth to the full as much in politics, as talents. 
 
 It is worth while to observe here, that all the political 
 difficulties in which the United States have become in- 
 volved, and which have threatened the existence of the 
 Union itself, have been settled by means of what are here 
 called compromises, and in France justes-mili&ux. Thus 
 was ended the serious dispute on the Missouri question, 
 which had well nigh set the Union in a flame. It was 
 made a question whether Missouri should be received into 
 the Confederacy with a constitution sanctioning the insti- 
 tution of slavery. After a long and ineffectual debate, 
 Mr Clay moved that Missouri should be admitted uncon- 
 ditionally, but that, at the same time, it should be declared 
 that in future no new State lying north of 36 30' of lati- 
 tude, should be admitted into the Union with this institu- 
 tion ; this proposition was received with general favour, 
 and the admission of Missouri was carried. In the next 
 session, however, a new quarrel arose between the North 
 and the South, more violent and bitter than the former, in 
 relation to an article in the constitution of Missouri, pro- 
 hibiting any free man of colour from entering the State. 
 Another compromise, proposed by Mr Clay, finally settled 
 the whole question in 1821, after it had kept the country 
 in a flame for three years. In 1833, another compromise 
 was made in respect to the tariff, the honour of which also 
 belongs to Mr Clay. This question will sooner or later be 
 settled in the same manner j the Union cannot do without 
 a National Bank, and it will have one.
 
 68 LETTER V. 
 
 There are some lucky persons who succeed in every- 
 thing, and there are some lucky nations with whom every- 
 thing turns out well, even those events which seemed 
 about to bury them in ruins. The United States is one 
 of these privileged communities. When Villeroi came 
 back to Versailles, after his defeat, Louis XIV. said to 
 him, "Marshal, nobody is lucky at our time of life." 
 Charles V. also, as he grew old, said that fortune was like 
 a woman, and preferred young men to old ones. Louis 
 and Charles were right so far as this, that when a man, 
 young or old, has finished his mission, foresight, ability, 
 and perseverance profit him little ; he fails in whatever 
 he undertakes, whilst he who has a mission yet to fulfil, 
 takes new strength from the most violent blows. This is 
 true of nations as well as of individuals. The American 
 people is a young people, which has a mission to perform ; 
 nothing less than to redeem a world from savage forests, 
 panthers, and bears. It moves with mighty strides to- 
 wards its object, for it has not, like the nations of Europe, 
 the burden of a heavy past on its shoulders. It may be 
 checked in its career for a time by the present crisis, but 
 it will come out of it safe and sound, and more healthy 
 than when it entered it. It will come out with increased 
 resources, with a reformed banking system, and according 
 to all appearances, even with an improved National Bank. 
 May the nations of Europe not have to wait long for in- 
 stitutions, which have so powerfully assisted England and 
 America in their progress !
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 69 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. NEW POWERS. 
 
 BALTIMORE, MARCH 1, 1834. 
 
 FAILURES begin to be frequent in the United States, 
 particularly in New York and Pennsylvania ; the great 
 commercial and manufacturing houses are shaking. Mean- 
 while the Senators and Representatives in Congress are 
 making speeches on the crisis, its causes, and consequences. 
 Three months have already been taken up in discussing 
 the question, whether the Secretary of the Treasury had 
 or had not the right to withdraw the public deposits from 
 the vaults of the Bank, without that institution having 
 given any just cause of complaint, and merely because it 
 was strongly suspected of aristocratical tendencies. The 
 resolutions which have given rise to these debates, have been 
 referred by the Senate to the Committee on Finance, and 
 by the House to the Committee of Ways and Means. 
 Debates will rise on the reports of these committees, on 
 petitions and memorials, and incidental matters, and, I am 
 told, will last two or three months longer. This slowness 
 is at first glance difficult to be understood, among a peo- 
 ple, which, above all things, strives to save time, and 
 which is so much given to haste and despatch, that its 
 most suitable emblem would be a locomotive engine or a 
 steamboat, just as the Centaurs were anciently confounded 
 with their horses. From all the large towns of the North, 
 committees appointed by great public meetings, bring to 
 Washington memorials signed by thousands, calling for 
 prompt and efficient measures to put an end to the crisis. 
 On the other hand, the partisans of the Administration
 
 70 LETTER VI. 
 
 find fault with the prolixity of the legislators. The calm- 
 ness, or rather phlegm, which the Americans have inherit- 
 ed from their English ancestors, is kept undisturbed in both 
 houses of Congress, and the solemn debate goes on. One 
 speaker for example, Mr Benton, occupied four sessions, 
 four whole days, with his speech, which led Mr Calhoun 
 to observe, that the Senator from Missouri took up more 
 time in expressing his opinion on a single fact, than the 
 French people had done in achieving. a revolution. But 
 these interminable delays ought not to be too lightly con- 
 demned, and for myself I only shrug my shoulders, when 
 I hear some impatient individuals asserting that Congress 
 would be more expeditious, were it not for the eight dol- 
 lars a day which they receive during the session. This 
 delay may seem irreconcileable with one of the distinctive 
 traits of the American character, but in reality is imperi- 
 ously demanded by the form and spirit of the government, 
 by the institutions and political habits of the country. 
 
 The general discussion in Congress has no other object 
 than to open a full and free public inquest, which enables 
 each and all to make up an opinion. It gives rise to a 
 discussion of the question by the innumerable journals in 
 the United States (where there are 1200 political newspa- 
 pers), by the twentyfour legislatures, each composed of 
 two houses, and by the public meetings in the cities and 
 towns. It is an animated exchange of arguments of every 
 calibre and every degree, of contradictory resolutions, 
 mixed up with applauses and hisses, of exaggerated eulo- 
 gies and brutal invectives. A stranger, who finds himself 
 suddenly thrown into the midst of this hubbub, is con- 
 founded and stupefied ; he seems to himself to be present 
 in the primeval or the final chaos, or at least at the general 
 breaking up of the Union. But after a certain time some 
 gleams of light break forth from these thick clouds, from 
 the bosom of this confusion, gleams, which the good
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 71 
 
 sense of the people hails with joy, and which light up the 
 Congress. We see here the realization of the Forum on 
 an immense scale, the Forum with its tumult, its cries, 
 its pasquinades, but also with its sure instincts, and its 
 flashes of native and untaught genius. It is a spectacle , 
 in its details, occasionally prosaic and repulsive, but, as a 
 whole, imposing as the troubled ocean. In a country like 
 this, it is impossible to avoid these delays ; first, because 
 it takes a long time to interchange words between the 
 frontiers of Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, and secondly, 
 because nothing is so dangerous as precipitation in a Forum, 
 whether it only covers the narrow space between the Rostra 
 and the Tarpeian Rock, or extends from Lake Champlain 
 to the mouth of the Mississippi, and from the Illinois to the 
 Cape of Florida. Unfortunately the session in the Forum 
 lasts longer than usual this time. The demagogues have 
 set the popular passions in violent agitation ; the sovereign 
 people has allowed itself to be magnetised by its flatterers, 
 and it will require some time to be able to shake off the 
 trance. The healing beam, which will fix the gaze of the 
 multitude and dissipate the charm that envelopes them, 
 has not yet broke forth from the East, or from the West ; 
 meanwhile the merchants and manufacturers, who are 
 stretched upon the coals, writhe in vain ; there is no answer 
 to their cries. 
 
 The Bank, meantime, disappears from sight and keeps 
 silence ; it continues to attend to its own business, and 
 prudently confines itself to that alone. Its best policy is 
 to avoid as much as possible making itself the subject of 
 common talk. The demagogues have raised such a cry 
 of monopoly and aristocracy, that the people have come 
 to believe the Bank a colossus of aristocracy, a prop of 
 monopoly. These words monopoly and aristocracy are 
 here, .what the word Jesuits was in France a few years ago ; 
 if the enemies of any institution can write on its back
 
 72 LETTER VI. 
 
 this kind of abracadabra, it is pointed at, hooted at, and 
 hissed at by the multitude. Such is the magic power of 
 these words, that speculators employ them on all oc- 
 casions as charms to draw customers. For example, at 
 the head of the advertisements of steamboats you read 
 in staring characters : No MONOPOLY ! ! ! It is pitiful to 
 say that the Bank of the United States has a monopoly, 
 when there are no less than five hundred other banks in 
 the country ; by this course of reasoning one might con- 
 vict the sun of enjoying a monopoly of light. And yet 
 the multitude has believed it, and believes it still. Now 
 the best policy for those against whom such a storm of 
 unpopularity is raised, is to run for port, as the sailors do 
 in a gale of wind. The Bank has twice attempted to 
 strike a blow, by taking advantage of the mistakes of its 
 enemies, and both times the stroke has recoiled on itself. 
 The first time, the subject of dispute was a draft on 
 the French government, which was sold to the Bank last 
 year by the Federal government, and which France refused 
 to pay ; the draft was, therefore, protested, and then pai^d 
 by the correspondent of the Bank in Paris in honour of 
 the endorser. In this affair the Executive of the United 
 States committed two faults : 1. It was an act of indiscre- 
 tion to draw on the French government, before the Cham- 
 bers had made the necessary appropriation for paying the 
 stipulated indemnity ; 2. Instead of drawing on the 
 French government by a bill of exchange, and selling the 
 bill to the Bank, without knowing whether it would be 
 accepted, the Executive would have conducted itself with 
 more propriety towards France, towards the Bank, and 
 towards itself, if it had authorized the Bank to receive 
 the moneys paid by the French government, in the capa- 
 city of its agent or attorney. By the commercial practice 
 of all countries, and of this in particular, the Bank had a 
 right to damages, and it put in its claim. Its object in
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 73 
 
 taking this step, was much more to expose the errors of 
 the Executive, than to pocket the sum of 50,000 or 80,000 
 dollars. But its adversaries immediately raised the cry, 
 that the Bank was not contented with exacting enormous 
 sums from the sweat of the people to the profit of the 
 stockholders, (observe that the dividends of the Bank are 
 moderate, compared with those of other banking compa- 
 nies in the country, and that the Federal government is 
 itself the largest shareholder) ; but that it was now at- 
 tempting, by petty chicanery, to extort a portion of the 
 public revenue, and to bury the people's money in Biddle's 
 pockets. To this reasoning, and it passes for demonstra- 
 tion, the multitude answered by imprecations against mo- 
 nopoly and the moneyed aristocracy, and by renewed shouts 
 of HURRAH FOR JACKSON ! 
 
 A few days since we witnessed another episode of this 
 kind. The Bank is charged, by act of Congress, with 
 the duty of paying the pensions of the old soldiers of the 
 revolution. It performs the service gratuitously, and it is 
 notoriously a troublesome one. It has received several 
 sums of money for this object, and at this moment has 
 about 500,000 dollars in its vaults, intended for the next 
 payments. The Administration, desirous of transferring 
 this agency from the Bank, has demanded the funds, books, 
 and papers connected with it. The Bank replied, that it 
 has been made the depository of this trust by act of Con- 
 gress, and that it cannot, ought not, and will not surrender 
 it, unless in obedience to an act of Congress. The Bank 
 was right j the refusal was founded in justice but mark 
 the consequences. Its adversaries express the greatest 
 sympathy for these illustrious relics of the revolution, 
 whom the arrogance of the Bank, as they say, is about to 
 plunge, at the close of their career, into the most dreadful 
 misery ; they pour forth the most pathetic lamentations 
 over these glorious defenders of the country, whom a 
 10
 
 74 LETTER VI. 
 
 money-corporation is about to strip of the provision made 
 for their declining years by the nation's gratitude. You 
 may imagine all the noisy arguments and patriotic har- 
 angues, that can be delivered on this text. On the 4th of 
 February, the President sent a message to Congress in the 
 same strain. All this is mere declamation, of the most 
 common-place and the most hypocritical kind ; for who 
 will prevent the deliverers of America from duly receiving 
 their pensions, except those who shall refuse them drafts 
 on the Bank, which the Bank would pay at once ? But 
 a people under fascination is not influenced by reason, 
 and it is at this moment believed by the multitude that 
 the Bank has determined to kill the noble veterans of 
 Independence by hunger. Once more, then, anathemas 
 against monopoly, hatred to the moneyed aristocracy ! 
 HURRAH FOR JACKSON ! JACKSON FOREVER ! 
 
 Whenever, therefore, the Bank has allowed itself to be 
 drawn into a conflict, which is the enemy's country, it is 
 pronounced to be in the wrong, though it were ten times 
 right. On the contrary, when it has kept to its discounts 
 and credits, it has always been able, without opening its 
 mouth, to belie the charges of its enemies, who not only 
 impute to it the atrocious crime of being suspected of aris- 
 tocracy and monopoly, but attribute to it now the public 
 distress, of which they denied the existence a few months 
 ago, and of which they are themselves the authors. Very 
 lately the Bank came to the relief of several local banks, 
 which were in danger of failing, and a few days since it 
 opened its coffers liberally to Allen & Co., one of the prin- 
 cipal houses in the country, who, although having a capital 
 much beyond the amount of their debts, were obliged, by 
 the pressure of the times, to suspend payments ; the fail- 
 ure of that house, which has no less than 24 branches, 
 would have involved hundreds of others. This is the 
 only way in which the Bank should assume the offensive ;
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 75 
 
 such acts, without a word of comment, would secure it 
 the favour and the support of all impartial and enlightened 
 men, and the gratitude of the commercial interest, much 
 more completely than the most eloquent protests against 
 the measures of this or that secretary, or the most ingeni- 
 ous and able defence of itself. 
 
 I am more and more convinced that the United States 
 will reap advantage from this crisis ; sooner or later the 
 reform of the banking system must result from it. Very 
 probably, the National Bank, if it is maintained, and the 
 local banks, will hereafter be less absolutely separated 
 from the Federal and State governments ; that is to say, 
 that the Federal and local governments will assume the 
 control of the Banks, and consequently the banks will 
 become a part of the governments. In this way many of 
 the abuses of the banking system will be reformed, and 
 the legitimate and just influence of the banks will be 
 strengthened. It would be easy to cite numerous facts, 
 which go to prove the tendency towards this result ; thus 
 in some of the States, the Legislatures have established, 
 or are occupied in establishing banks, in which the State 
 is a shareholder to the amount of one half or two fifths of 
 the capital, appoints a certain number of the directors, and 
 reserves to itself an important control over the operations. 
 There are some States, as for example, Illinois, in which 
 every other kind of bank is expressly forbidden by the 
 constitution. 
 
 Republican publicists acknowledge only three classes of 
 powers, the executive, legislative, and judicial ; but it will 
 soon be seen in the United States, that there is also a 
 financial power, or at least the banks will form a branch 
 of government quite as efficient as either of the others. 
 The Bank of the United States is more essential to the 
 prosperity of the country than the Executive, as now or- 
 ganized. The latter conducts a little diplomatic inter-
 
 76 LETTER VI. 
 
 course, well or ill, with the European powers, nominates 
 and removes some unimportant functionaries, manoeuvres 
 an army of 6,000 men in the western wilderness, adds 
 now and then some sticks of timber to the dozen ships of 
 war that are on the stocks at Portsmouth, Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, Washington, Norfolk, and Pensacola. 
 All this might actually cease to be done without endanger- 
 ing the safety of the country, and without seriously 
 wounding its prosperity, that is, its industry. But take 
 from the country its institutions for the maintenance of 
 credit, or only that which controls and regulates all the 
 others, the Bank of the United States, and you plunge it 
 into a commercial anarchy which would finally result in 
 political anarchy. 
 
 The word politics cannot have the same meaning in the 
 United States as in Europe. The United States, are not 
 engaged, like the nations of Europe, in territorial combi- 
 nations and the preservation of the balance of a continent, 
 nor are they entangled in treaties of Westphalia or Vienna. 
 They are free from all those difficulties, which in Europe 
 arise from a difference of origin or religion, or from the 
 conflict between rival pretensions, between old interests 
 and new interests. They have no neighbour, which ex- 
 cites their suspicions. The policy of the United States 
 consists in the extension of their commerce, and the occu- 
 pation by agriculture of the vast domain, which nature 
 has given them ; in these points is involved the great mass 
 of their general and individual interests ; these are the 
 objects which inflame their political and individual passions. 
 As the Banks are the soul of their commerce, their rising 
 manufactures, and even their agriculture, it is evident that 
 the success of their politics is intimately and directly con- 
 nected with the right organization of their banking system. 
 The real government of the country, that is to say, the 
 control of its essential interests, is as much in the banks as
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 77 
 
 in any body or power established by the constitution. 
 The time is come when this fact should be recognised and 
 sanctioned. As among a military people the office of mar- 
 shal or lord-high-constable is the first in the kingdom, so 
 among a people which has nothing to do with war, and 
 has only to employ itself with its industry, that of Presi- 
 dent of the central bank, for example, ought to be a 
 public charge, political, in the sense adapted to the condi- 
 tion and wants of that people, and one of the first rank 
 in the country. 
 
 From this point of view, it may be said, that what is 
 now passing in the United States, is a struggle in which 
 the combatants are, on the one side, the military interest 
 and the law, which have hitherto divided between them 
 the control of public affairs, and on the other, the financial 
 interest, which now claims its share in them ; the two first 
 have coalesced against the last, and have succeeded for a 
 time in raising the multitude against it, but they will fail 
 in the long run, since the multitude has more to gain from it 
 than from them. It is said, that, when the committee of the 
 New York merchants went to Washington to present a peti- 
 tion with 10,000 names in favour of the Bank, the President 
 observed to them, that they declared the grievances of the 
 brokers, capitalists, and merchants of Wall Street and 
 Pearl Street, but that Wall Street and Pearl Street were 
 not the people. I do not know whether the story is 
 true or not, but I know that such an answer would express 
 the opinion of the dominant party. There is a school 
 here, which attempts to eliminate the wealthy classes 
 from the people, and which is just the reverse of the old 
 school of European Tories, which reduces the people to 
 the higher classes, and excludes from that rank the greater 
 number of the nation. And nothing can be more unjust, 
 for in order to measure the real importance of the men
 
 78 LETTER VI. 
 
 of Pearl Street and Wall Street, it is only necessary to 
 consider what New York would be without them. 
 
 In fifty years the population of New York has increased 
 tenfold, its wealth probably an hundred fold ; its anima- 
 ting influences have been felt for hundreds of miles around. 
 This unparalleled growth is not the work of lawyers and 
 military men ; the merit belongs chiefly to the industry, the 
 capital, the intelligence, and the enterprise of that, numer- 
 ically speaking, insignificant minority of Wall Street and 
 Pearl Street. It is very easy to cant about the aristocra- 
 cy of dollars, and those filthy metals which men call gold 
 and silver. And yet have not those vile metals ceased to 
 be vile, when they are the fruit of the industry and en- 
 terprise of those who possess them ? If there is a coun- 
 try in the world where it is preposterous to prate about the 
 aristocracy of dollars, and about the filthy metals, it is 
 this. For here, more than any where else, every body has 
 some employment ; whoever has capital is engaged in 
 turning it to profit, and can neither increase nor even keep 
 it without great activity and vigilance. A man's wealth, 
 is, therefore, very generally in the ratio of his importance, 
 and even of his agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial 
 capacity. The merchants are not without their faults; 
 they are disposed to weigh everything in their doubloon- 
 scales, and a people governed entirely by merchants would 
 certainly be to be pitied. But a people governed by law- 
 yers or by soldiers would be no happier and no freer. 
 The policy of the Hamburg Senate in basely giving 
 up unhappy political fugitives to the English executioner, 
 deserves the contempt of every man of honour ; but would 
 the rule of Russian or even of Napoleon's bayonets, or the 
 babbling anarchy of the Directory, be less loathsome to 
 those whose heart beats with the love of liberty or with 
 feelings of individual and national honour ? 
 
 The revolutions of ages, which change religion, man-
 
 PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. 79 
 
 ners, and customs, modify also the nature of the powers 
 that regulate society. Providence humbles the mighty, 
 when they obstinately shut their eyes to the new spirit of 
 the age, and raises up the lowly, whom this new spirit 
 fires. Four thousand years ago, it was one of the most im- 
 portant dignities in Egypt to have the charge of embalm- 
 ing the sacred birds or of spreading the litter of the bull 
 Apis. In the Eastern empire the post of protovestiary was 
 one of the first in the state, and not to go so far back, it 
 was the ambition of many in France, hardly four years 
 ago, to become gentilhomme de la chambre, as the groom of 
 the stole, or, in other words, the servant in charge of the 
 wardrobe, is now one of the grand dignitaries of England. 
 Nobody now-a-days embalms sacred birds, nobody spreads 
 the litter of Apis. No one intrigues for the post of proto- 
 vestiary or gentleman of the chamber, and from present 
 appearances, I do not think that even the dignity of 
 Groom of the Stole, will long be an object of ambition in 
 England. There are no longer lord-high-constables, or 
 great vassals, or knights-errant, or peers of France in the 
 old sense of the word. The French aristocracy, so bril- 
 liant fifty years ago, has fallen like corn before the reaper. 
 The mansions of the old heroes have become factories ; 
 the convents have been changed into spinning- works ; 
 I have seen Gothic naves in the best style of art trans- 
 formed into workshops or granaries, and our brave troops 
 have become peaceable labourers on the military roads. 
 
 Boards of petty clerks, whom the Castellans had em- 
 ployed to record their sovereign decrees, became in France 
 parlements, which braved the kings and assumed to 
 be guardians of the laws of the realm. At present the 
 forge masters of Burgundy and the Nivernais, the distil- 
 lers of Montpelier, the clothiers of Sedan and Elbeuf, 
 have taken the place of the parlements. German princes, 
 who can boast of their fifty quarters, dance attendance in
 
 80 LETTER VII. 
 
 the imperial, royal, or ministerial antechambers, while their 
 Majesties or their Excellencies are conversing familiarly 
 with some banker who has no patent of nobility, and who 
 even disdains to oblige his royal friends by accepting one. 
 The East India Company, a company of merchants if 
 ever there was one, has more subjects than the emperors 
 of Russia and Austria together. If in the Old World, 
 where the old interests had marked every corner of the 
 land with their stamp, the old interests, the military and 
 the law, are thus obliged to come to terms with the new 
 interest of industry, with the power of money, how can it 
 be possible, that, in the New World, where the past has 
 never taken deep root, where all thoughts are turned 
 toward business and wealth, this same power will not force 
 its way into the political scene, in spite of the opposition 
 of its adversaries and its envious rivals ? 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 RAILROADS IN AMERICA. 
 
 RICHMOND, (VA.) MARCH 15, 1834. 
 
 THREE thousand years ago the kings of the earth were 
 happy ; happy as a king ; but the old proverb is now 
 become a falsehood. Then no Constantinople was coveted ; 
 the citadels of Antwerp and Ancona were not built. No 
 one troubled himself about the Rhenish frontier ; the 
 natural and simple Herodotus told marvellous tales, like 
 those of the Arabian Nights, about the country watered 
 by the Rhine. The banks of the Danube were trackless
 
 RAILROADS IN AMERICA. 81 
 
 morasses ; Vienna was not yet, nor of course the Treaty of 
 Vienna. Peace reigned between the sovereigns, or at least 
 their contests were altogether academical, philosophical, and 
 literary. The good king Nectanebus, an enlightened prince, 
 a patron of the arts, played charades with his neighbours, 
 the mighty monarchs of Asia ; he guessed all their riddles 
 without their being able to solve his in turn j his glory 
 was unmatched, his people rolled in prosperity. The con- 
 dition of men of letters and science was, to be sure, some- 
 what of the meanest ; grammarians and philosophers were 
 sometimes dragged to market with halters on their necks, 
 to be sold like cattle, a treatment to which none but 
 negroes are now subject. But if they were men of genius, 
 their good star threw them into the hands of the best of 
 masters, such as Xanthus, the most patient and kind of 
 men, or good natured princes, like Nectanebus, who knew 
 how to appreciate true merit. .ZEsop having become the 
 property of this good king, soon got to be his counsellor, 
 friend, and confidant, revised his charades and riddles, and 
 suggested new ones to the king in such a modest way, 
 that Nectanebus really believed himself the author of 
 them. One day Nectanebus, by his advice, proposed to his 
 rival monarchs this difficult problem ; How would you 
 build a city in the air ? After they had puzzled their 
 brains without success, Nectanebus prepared to give a 
 solution of the question in the presence of the ambassa- 
 dors of the Asiatic sovereigns solemnly convoked ; ^Esop 
 put some little boys in baskets, which were carried up 
 into the air by eagles trained for the purpose, and the boys 
 began to cry out to the astonished ambassadors ; " Give 
 us stone and mortar, and we will build you a city." This 
 old story has often occurred to my mind since I have been in 
 the United States, and I have often said to myself, if JSsop's 
 boys had been Americans, instead of having been subjects 
 of king Nectanebus, they would have demanded mate- 
 11
 
 82 LETTER VII. 
 
 rials, not for building a city, but for constructing a railroad. 
 In fact there is a perfect mania in this country on the sub- 
 ject of railroads. 
 
 While at Liverpool, I went aboard the Pacific to engage 
 a berth, and Capt. Waite, a very worthy man, who believes 
 in God with all his heart, and is not any the less on that 
 account a very skilful commander, and a most intrepid 
 sailor, offered me the latest American newspapers. The 
 first I opened happened to be the Railroad Journal. 
 Soon after sailing I fell sea-sick, and had scarcely a mo- 
 ment's relief till my arrival at New York ; of all my re- 
 collections of the voyage, the most distinct is that of having 
 heard the word railroad occurring once every ten minutes, 
 in the conversation of the passengers. At New York- I 
 went to visit the docks for building and repairing vessels ; 
 after having examined the dry dock and two or three 
 other docks, my guide, himself an enthusiast on the sub- 
 ject of railroads, carried me to the railroad-dock, where 
 the ships are moved along a railway. In Virginia, I found 
 railroads at the bottom of the coal mines, which is not, 
 indeed, new to a European. At Philadelphia I visited the 
 excellent penitentiary, where everything was so neat, 
 quiet, and comfortable, (if that word may be applied to a 
 prison), in comparison with the abominable prisons in 
 France, which are noisy, filthy, unhealthy, cold in winter, 
 and damp in summer. The warden, Mr Wood, who man- 
 ages the institution with great vigilance and philanthropy, 
 after having shown me the prisoners' cells, the yards in 
 which they take the air, the kitchen where the cooking 
 is done by steam, and allowed me to visit one of the con- 
 victs, a poor fellow from Alsace, said to me, just as I was 
 taking my leave ; " But you have not seen everything yet, 
 I must show you my railroad ;" and in fact there was a 
 railroad in the prison, for the cart in which food was 
 brought to the prisoners.
 
 RAILROADS IN AMERICA. 83 
 
 Some days ago I happened to be in the little city of 
 Petersburg, which stands at the falls of the Appomattox, 
 and near which there is an excellent railroad. A mer- 
 chant of the city took me to a manufactory of tobacco, 
 in which some peculiar processes were employed. In 
 these works was manufactured that sort of tobacco which 
 most Americans chew, and will chew for some time to 
 come, in spite of the severe, but in this matter just, cen- 
 sures of English travellers, unless the fashion of vetos 
 should spread in the United States, and the women should 
 set theirs on the use of tobacco, with as unyielding a reso- 
 lution, as the President has shown towards the Bank. 
 After having wandered about the workshops amidst the 
 poor little slaves by whom they are filled, I was stopping 
 to look at some of these blacks, who appeared to me 
 almost white, and who had not more than one eighth of 
 African blood in their veins, when my companion said to 
 me, " As you are interested in railroads, you must see the 
 one belonging to the works." Accordingly we went to 
 the room where the tobacco is packed in kegs, and sub- 
 jected to a powerful pressure. The apparatus for pressing 
 is a very peculiar contrivance, which I will not now stop 
 to describe, but of which the most important part is a 
 moveable railroad, suspended from the ceiling. Thus the 
 Americans have railroads in the water, in the bowels of 
 the earth, and in the air. The benefits of the invention 
 are so palpable to their practical good sense, that they 
 endeavour to make an application of it everywhere and to 
 everything, right or wrong, and when they cannot con- 
 struct a real, profitable railroad across the country from 
 river to river, from city to city, or from State to State, 
 they get one up, at least, as a plaything, or until they can 
 accomplish something better, under the form of a ma- 
 chine. 
 
 The distance from Boston to New Orleans is 1600 miles,
 
 84 LETTER VII. 
 
 or twice the distance from Havre to Marseilles. It is 
 highly probable, that within a few years this immense 
 line will be covered by a series of railroads stretching from 
 bay to bay, from river to river, and offering to the ever- 
 impatient Americans the 'service of their rapid cars at the 
 points where the steamboats leave their passengers. This 
 is not a castle in the air, like so many of those grand 
 schemes which are projected amidst the fogs of the Seine, 
 the Loire, and the Garonne ; it is already half completed. 
 The railroad from Boston to Providence is in active pro- 
 gress ; the work goes on a V Americaine, that is to say, 
 rapidly. From New York to Philadelphia, there will soon 
 be not only one open to travel, but two in competition 
 with each other, the one on the right, the other on the 
 left bank of the Delaware ; the passage between the two 
 cities will be made in seven hours, five hours on the rail- 
 road, and two in the steamboat, in the beautiful Hudson 
 and the magnificent Bay of New York, which the Ameri- 
 cans, who are not afflicted with modesty, compare with 
 the Bay of Naples. From Philadelphia, travellers go to 
 Baltimore by the Delaware and Chesapeake, and by the 
 Newcastle and Frenchtown railroad, in eight hours ; from 
 Baltimore to Washington, a railroad has been resolved upon, 
 a company chartered, the shares taken, and the work be- 
 gun, all within the space of a few months. Between 
 Washington and Blakely, in North Carolina, 60 miles of 
 railroad are completed, from Blakely northwards. A com- 
 pany has just been chartered to complete the remaining 
 space, that is, from Richmond to the Potomac, a distance 
 of 70 miles, and the Potomac bears you to the Federal city 
 by Mt. Vernon, a delightful spot, the patrimony of George 
 Washington, where he passed his honoured old age, and 
 where his body now reposes in a modest tomb. Between 
 Washington and Blakely, those who prefer the steamboats, 
 may take another route ; by descending the Chesapeake
 
 RAILROADS IN AMERICA. 85 
 
 to Norfolk, they will find another railroad, 70 miles in 
 length, of which two thirds are now finished, and which 
 carries them to Blakely, and even beyond. Blakely is a 
 new town, which you will not find on any map, born of 
 yesterday ; it is the eldest, and as yet the only daughter 
 of the Petersburg and Blakely railroad. From Blakely to 
 Charleston the distance is great, but the Americans are 
 enterprising, and there is no region in the world in which 
 railroads can be constructed so easily and so cheaply ; the 
 surface has been graded by nature, and the vast forests 
 which cover it, will furnish the wood of which the rail- 
 road will be made ; for here most of these works have a 
 wooden superstructure. From Charleston, a railroad 137 
 miles in length, as yet the longest in the world, extends 
 to Augusta, whence to Montgomery, Alabama, there is a 
 long interval to be supplied. From this last town steam- 
 boats descend the River Alabama to Mobile, and those 
 who do not wish to pay their respects to the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, on their way to New Orleans, will soon find a railroad 
 which will spare them the necessity of offering this act 
 of homage to the memory of the great Cortez.* 
 
 Within ten years this whole line will be completed, and 
 traversed by locomotive engines, provided the present crisis 
 terminates promptly and happily, as I hope it will. Ten 
 years is a long time in these days, and a plan, whose exe- 
 cution requires ten years, seems like a romance or a dream. 
 But in respect to railroads, the Americans have already 
 something to show. Pennsylvania, which by the last 
 census, in 1830, contained only 1,348,000 inhabitants, has 
 325 miles of railroads actually completed, or which will 
 be so within the year, without reckoning 76 miles which 
 the capitalists of Philadelphia have constructed in the 
 little States of New Jersey and Delaware. The total 
 
 * For observations on these statements see Letter XXI., and the Notes.
 
 86 LETTER VII. 
 
 length of all the railroads in France is 95 miles, that is, a 
 little more than what the citizens of Philadelphia, in their 
 liberality, have given to their poor neighbours. In the 
 State of New York, whose population is the most adven- 
 turous and the most successful in their speculations, , there 
 are at present only four or five short railroads, but if the 
 sixth part of those which are projected and authorized by 
 the Legislature, are executed, New York will not be be- 
 hind Pennsylvania in this respect. The merchants of 
 Baltimore, which at the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence contained 6,000 inhabitants, and which now 
 numbers 100,000, have taken it into their heads to make 
 a railroad between their city and the Ohio, a distance of 
 above 300 miles. They have begun it with great spirit, 
 and have now finished about one third of the whole road. 
 In almost every section east of the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi, there are railroads projected, in progress, or com- 
 pleted, and on most of them locomotive steam-engines are 
 employed. There are some in the Alleghanies, whose 
 inclined planes are really terrific, from their great inclina- 
 tion ; these were originally designed only for the transpor- 
 tation of goods, but passenger-cars have been set up on 
 them, at the risk of breaking the necks of travellers. 
 There are here works well constructed and ill constructed ; 
 there are some that have cost dear, (from 40,000 to 50,000 
 dollars a mile,) and others that have cost little, (from 
 10,000 to 15,000 dollars a mile). New Orleans has one, 
 a very modest one to be sure, it being only five miles long, 
 but it will soon have others, and after all, it is before old 
 Orleans, for the latter has yet to wait till its capitalists, 
 seized with some violent fit of patriotism, shall be ready 
 to make the sacrifice of devoting some ten or twelve per 
 cent, of their capital to the construction of a railroad thence 
 to Paris. Virginia, whose population is nearly the same 
 with that of the Department of the North, and which is 
 

 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 87 
 
 inferior in wealth, already has 75 miles of railroad fully 
 completed, and 110 in progress, exclusive of those begun 
 this year. The Department of the North, where it would 
 be quite as easy to construct them, and where they would 
 be more productive, has not a foot completed, or in pro- 
 gress, and hardly a foot projected. Observe, moreover, 
 that I here speak of railroads alone, the rage for which is 
 quite new in America, while that for canals is of very old 
 date (for in this country fifteen years is an age), and has 
 achieved wonders. There are States which contain 500, 
 800, or 1,000 miles of canals. We in France are of all 
 people the boldest in theory and speculation, and we have 
 made the world tremble by our political experiments ; but 
 during the last twenty years we have shown ourselves 
 the most timid of nations in respect to physical improve- 
 ments. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 THE BANKS. THE PRESERVATION OF THE 
 
 UNION. 
 
 WASHINGTON, APRIL 10, 1834. 
 
 THE drama which has been passing in the United States 
 since the opening of the session, has now reached the end 
 of the first act. The two Houses have had under consid- 
 eration the subject of the removal of the public deposits 
 from the Bank of the United States to the local banks, by 
 the Executive, and both of them have come to a decision. 
 The Senate has declared, by a majority of 28 to 18, that
 
 88 LETTER VIII. 
 
 the reasons alleged by the Secretary of the Treasury in 
 justification of the measure, were neither satisfactory nor 
 sufficient, and, by a majority of 26 to 20, that the conduct 
 of the President in this matter was neither conformable to 
 the constitution nor to the laws. This is the first instance, 
 since the adoption of the Federal constitution, of a cen- 
 sure of the chief magistrate of the nation by the Senate. 
 The House has resolved, on its part, that the charter of 
 the Bank ought not to be renewed, that the public de- 
 posits ought not to be restored to it, and that they should 
 remain in the safe-keeping of the local banks. The first 
 resolve passed by a vote of 132 to 92 ; the majority for 
 the two others was much less, 118 to 103, and 117 to 105. 
 It has been resolved, by a large majority, 171 to 42, that 
 the conduct of the Bank should be made a subject of in- 
 vestigation, but this majority includes many friends of the 
 Bank. 
 
 It is to be hoped that the Bank will not be the object of 
 this campaign ; the more vigorously it is defended, the 
 more hateful it becomes to the democracy. Those who 
 feel an interest in their country and its institutions, ought 
 to make an effort to turn the debate toward some other 
 point, for both sides have become heated and exasperated 
 in the struggle, and already violence has been threatened. 
 The most brilliant services have been forgotten, the purest 
 characters trampled under foot. The Globe, the avowed 
 organ of the administration, pours forth the vilest slanders 
 on men, such as Messrs. Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, 
 of whom any country in the world would be proud. It 
 repeated, and unhappily it reiterates still, that the votes of 
 the Senate have been bought by the Bank. On the 
 other hand, General Jackson, to whom it is impossible to 
 deny the possession of eminent qualities, has been himself 
 exposed to the vilest indignities ; the gray hairs of that 
 brave old man have been insulted in the most scandalous
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 89 
 
 manner. Attempts have even been made to throw ridicule on 
 his victory at New Orleans, the most brilliant affair in the 
 American annals, as if his glory were not the common 
 property of the country. Some hot heads have even talk- 
 ed of recurring to violence ; commerce and enterprise have 
 been struck numb ; for want of means, the great works 
 of Pennsylvania have been in danger of being brought to 
 a stand. But at present there appears to be a general wish 
 to bring back a calm ; the failure of a certain number of 
 individuals, and especially that of some banks, have proved 
 a signal of alarm, which has recalled every one to a sense 
 of the common danger, the general ruin that threatened 
 the country. There has been a failure of a bank in Flo- 
 rida, of one in New Jersey, and of two in Maryland, one 
 of which, that of the Bank of Maryland in Baltimore, has 
 caused a great sensation. The leading men of all parties 
 have set themselves in earnest to search out some means 
 of bringing the commercial crisis to an end. There is 
 room to hope, therefore, that the debate will lose its bit- 
 terness, and at the same time will take a wider range ; 
 instead of quarrelling about the particular question of the 
 Bank, it were to be wished that the higher questions of 
 political economy should be discussed, such as that of a 
 mixed currency, in which there should be the proper mix- 
 ture of paper and the metals necessary to give it stability, 
 without keeping, as is the case in Europe, a large unpro- 
 ductive capital in the shape of specie ; and that of a system 
 of institutions of credit, banks of loan and discount, of 
 deposit and exchange, powerful enough to serve as a spring 
 and a stay to the industry of the country, and yet so 
 balanced in respect to each other and the powers of the 
 government, as not to be dangerous to the public liberties. 
 A very able speech of Mr Calhoun's has already drawn the 
 general attention to the subject of financial refonn, and 
 one of the senators friendly to the administration, Mr Ben- 
 12
 
 90 LETTER VIII. 
 
 ton, has embodied some of Mr Calhoun's ideas in the shape 
 of a bill. 
 
 It b is now universally agreed, that to obtain a solid and 
 stable currency, it is necessary to keep a certain quan- 
 tity of gold and silver in the country ; it is seen that 
 while there are paper dollars, the silver dollars will disap- 
 pear, that ten-dollar notes necessarily expel the eagles, 
 and that half-eagles will not stay where there are five-dol- 
 lar bills. It is, therefore, proposed to abolish the issue of 
 notes of less than ten or even twenty dollars, but ail that 
 Congress can do without the aid of a National Bank, is to 
 prohibit the reception, by the collectors of the customs, of 
 the bills of any bank which has in circulation notes of less 
 than ten or twenty dollars ; for Congress has no direct 
 power over the local banks. This measure, however, 
 would be insufficient ; for the amount of money paid for 
 customs bears a very small proportion to the whole circu- 
 lation of the country, and consequently would not affect 
 the circulation in districts remote from the sea coast. The 
 Administration does not deny the necessity of a police for 
 controlling and regulating the banks ; it seems disposed to 
 effect it by means of some of the local banks, which 
 should act under the direction of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and to which should be granted certain privi- 
 leges, such as that of being the depositories of the public 
 money without paying interest. But this plan has some 
 disadvantages ; it would invest the Secretary, that is the 
 President, with a great discretionary power, which is 
 wholly at war with the political maxims of American gov- 
 ernment. It is a received truth in the United States, that 
 the sword and the purse ought not to be in the same hands. 
 Beside it is doubtful whether this control would be suffi- 
 ciently powerful and sufficiently enlightened, and finally 
 it would be difficult by means of this chain of local banks 
 to answer one of the most pressing wants of the country,
 
 PRESERVATION OK THE UNION. 91 
 
 facility of exchange ; because they are, and must be as 
 slightly connected with each other, as the sovereign States 
 from which they hold their charters. To exterminate small 
 hank-notes the surest agent would boa National Bank, and 
 Congress has the power to establish one. This power, 
 which is disputed because all its powers are disputed, 
 would not be contested, if it were stipulated that the Hank 
 should obtain the consent of each State, before establish- 
 ing a branch within its limits. It would then be sufficient 
 that the Bank should not receive the bills of any other 
 bank, which issued notes of less than 10 or 20 dollars, or 
 which received the bills of other banks, that issued notes 
 less than the same minimum. In fine, a National Bank 
 is an admirable instrument of exchange, and the most in- 
 fluential friends of the Administration are convinced of the 
 necessity of an institution of the sort. I cannot believe 
 that the President, and especially the Vice-President, are 
 really as much opposed to one, as they have the air of 
 being. As it is possible to conceive of a combination of 
 circumstances, which may reconcile its existence with the 
 interests and views of Mr Van Buren (such would be, for 
 instance, the creation of a Bank of which the seat should 
 be New York, instead of Philadelphia), it may be hoped 
 that sooner or later, under one form or another, Mr Van 
 Buren may yield to the necessity of the case. It is true 
 that out of hatred to the present Bank, the prejudices of 
 the multitude have been excited against the establishment 
 of any bank at all, and it is much more easy to rouse the 
 popular passions than to control them when once let J< 
 this kind of game has resulted in the self-murder of many 
 a man's popularity. But in this matter the voice of the 
 public interest and of individual interest will speak so 
 loud, that it would be astonishing if it did not make itself 
 heard by a people, so much more sensible and reflecting
 
 92 LETTER VIII. 
 
 than most of the European people. There is, then, in 
 short, still some chance for a Bank of the United States. 
 
 The following are the principal features, in which both 
 parties seem to me to be at present tacitly agreed. The 
 capital of the Bank to be about 50 millions. The shares 
 of the present Bank, representing a capital of 35 millions, 
 to be exchanged at par for shares in the new bank ; the 
 rest of the capital to be subscribed by the individual 
 States, thus giving the Bank a more truly national charac- 
 ter : The rate of discount to be reduced from 6 to 5 per 
 cent. ; Mr Forsyth, a Senator friendly to the administra- 
 tion, has demanded this modification : The laws relative 
 to public and private deposits to be changed in conformity 
 with the propositions of Mr Cambreleng : The seat of the 
 mother bank to be transferred to New York : The opera- 
 tions of the Bank to be subjected to more strict regulations 
 than those of the old Bank have been : The Bank to be 
 required to keep on hand a larger amount of reserved pro- 
 fits, or some other provision borrowed from the bank of 
 England to be adopted, in order to give more security to 
 the institution. 
 
 It would not, probably, be impossible to unite a majori- 
 ty of the two Houses in favour of a plan which should 
 embrace these features. But there is another subject about 
 which little is said, and upon which no one has yet pub- 
 licly declared himself, although there are many who have 
 thought much about it, and it will not be easy to reconcile 
 opinions upon it. How shall the Bank be governed ? 
 What relation shall there be between the administration 
 of the Bank, and the Federal and State governments? 
 How and by whom shall the President of the Bank be 
 chosen ? This subject, about which there is a total silence, 
 appears to me to be of so vital importance, that I am con- 
 vinced that what has occurred in the United States during 
 the last six months, would never have taken place, if the
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 93 
 
 nomination of the President of the Bank had been 
 lodged with the President of the United States. In 
 Europe and particularly in France, the government of the 
 banks is more or less in the hands and under the control 
 of the king and the ministers. In America, conformably 
 with the principles of self-government, the Bank, like all 
 the other industrial and financial institutions, has, up to 
 this time, governed itself. The Federal government, 
 owning one fifth of the shares, names one fifth of the 
 directors ; its powers stop there. The American axiom, 
 which forbids the union of the sword and the purse in the 
 same hand, is opposed to the exercise of a controlling in- 
 fluence over the choice of the President of the Bank by the 
 President of the United States ; and yet I am persuaded 
 that the democratic party will not be willing to hear of a 
 Bank, in the government of which it could not inter- 
 fere. 
 
 The upper classes (bourgeoisie) are not here what they are 
 in Europe ; while in Europe they rule, here they are ruled. 
 Democracy takes its revenge in America for the un- 
 just contempt with which it has been so long treated in 
 Europe. Now it is to these upper classes, that the private 
 shareholders of the Bank belong ; it is the merchants, 
 manufacturers, and capitalists, who will always derive the 
 most direct benefit from a National Bank, although all 
 classes must indirectly derive great advantages from it. 
 From the time when the upper classes sanctioned a com- 
 pletely universal suffrage, without making any exception 
 in favour of natural superiority, whether industrial or sci- 
 entific, from the day when they consented that number 
 should be every thing, and knowledge and capital nothing, 
 they have signed their own abdication. It is too late to 
 agitate the questions, whether this is absolutely a good or 
 an evil, or whether it is well, in the agricultural States, 
 with a scattered population, such as Ohio. Indiana, and
 
 94 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Illinois, and bad in large and populous cities, the seats of 
 a vast commerce, such as Philadelphia and New York. 
 This is a matter already settled past recall ; when the sword 
 is surrendered, the vanquished must submit to take the law 
 from the victor. In case, then, of the creation of a new Na- 
 tional Bank, the shareholders must consent to receive their 
 head, either from the President and Senate, as other pub- 
 lic functionaries are appointed, or from the House of Rep- 
 resentatives alone, or from some other similar source. If 
 in a new or a somewhat modified Bank, the Federal and 
 local governments should be stockholders to a large amount, 
 this participation of the President or the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, or of special delegates chosen by the States, in 
 the government of the Bank, would appear altogether 
 natural, even in the eyes of the most exclusive partisans 
 of self government. It remains to be seen, whether in 
 this case, the Bank would not be more likely to become 
 the instrument of party, a den of intrigue and corruption, 
 a golden calf, a monster, as it is so often unjustly called, 
 than in the present state of things. 
 
 If this quarrel should be terminated by a compromise, 
 we may expect that it will be effected on the basis above 
 stated. The upper classes will, perhaps, consider the con- 
 ditions as hard, but they should beware of rejecting them. 
 It would be a great gain to them to obtain, under any 
 form, a decisive sanction of a National Bank, connected 
 with the government, and therefore incorporated with the 
 interests of the country. Not only are numbers at present 
 against the Bank, and numbers give the law here, but the 
 Opposition is not so well organised as the democratic party. 
 The Opposition has, indeed, three leaders, who do not 
 always agree ; the views of Mr Calhoun of South Carolina 
 do not coincide with those of Messrs. Clay and Webster 
 on the subjects of the tariff and States' rights ; and Mr 
 Clay, the son of the west, and Mr Webster, who comes
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 95 
 
 from Boston, the focus of Federalism, differ on several 
 constitutional questions. The democratic party, on the 
 contrary, is better disciplined ; the two heads, General 
 Jackson and Mr Van Buren, present a formidable union of 
 qualities and faculties. The old General is firm, prompt, 
 bold, energetic ; Mr Van Buren, who sets up for the Amer- 
 ican Talleyrand, is mild, conciliating, prudent, and saga- 
 cious ; his adversaries call him the little magician. While 
 the pretensions of Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster are 
 scarcely to be reconciled with each other, and neither of 
 them is willing to be second, Mr Van Buren" is ready to 
 serve under General Jackson for the purpose of becoming 
 his successor in the elections of 1836. Every kingdom 
 divided against itself cannot stand. But, if no compro- 
 mise can be made, if the democracy is too untrac table, 
 and the upper classes persist in claiming more than their 
 position authorises them to do, if the feelings, kept in a 
 state of excitement, become exasperated on both sides, 
 and the contest be too much prolonged, the most frightful 
 consequences may ensue ; even the Union may be endan- 
 gered. 
 
 At the close of the war of Independence, the American 
 Confederacy occupied only a narrow strip along the Atlan- 
 tic. Since that time the wave of an active, enterprising, 
 and" rapidly increasing population, has rolled over the Alle- 
 ghanies, the Ohio, the Mississippi, more recently over the 
 Missouri, the Red River, the Arkansas, and I know not 
 how far. Toward the South it is already sweeping over 
 the Sabine, and covering Texas, while toward the West, 
 it has topped the Rocky Mountains, and is approaching 
 the Pacific shore. Instead of thirteen States, there are 
 twentyfour, and the number will soon be increased to 
 twentysix. By the side of the old Atlantic strip, two 
 other vast tracts with a more fertile soil, have yielded up 
 their riches to civilised man ; one, at the west, comprises
 
 96 LETTER VIII. 
 
 the great triangle lying between the Ohio, the Mississippi, 
 and the lakes, and the other at the south, includes the fer- 
 tile regions of Florida and Louisiana, which, under the 
 French and Spanish rule, were a solitary wilderness. The 
 geographical centre of the Union fifty years ago was on 
 the banks of the Potomac, on the spot where the city of 
 Washington that paper capital now stands ; it is now 
 at Cincinnati, and will soon be near St Louis. In propor- 
 tion as the territory of the Confederacy has been extended, 
 the Federal bond has been weakened. It was nearly 
 snapped asunder during the Nullification crisis, occasioned 
 by the resistance of South Carolina to the tariff adopted 
 under the influence of New England, in order to protect 
 her growing manufactures. If Congress had not satisfied 
 the demands of South Carolina, Virginia would have 
 made common cause with the latter, and her example 
 would have carried the whole South. The patriotic elo- 
 quence of Mr Webster, the moderation of Mr Clay and 
 his prodigies of parliamentary strategy, the efforts of Mr 
 Livingston, then Secretary of State, the firm, and, at the 
 same time, conciliatory conduct of the President, who, 
 for the first time, heard a bold defiance with patience, 
 and the calm attitude of the Northern States, prevented 
 for the moment a general dissolution of the Union : but 
 the germ of mischief remains ; the charm is broken ; the 
 ear has become familiar with the ominous word SEPARATION. 
 A habit has grown up of thinking, and even of declaring, 
 whenever the interests of the North and the South jar, that 
 the cure-all will be a dissolution of the Union. 
 
 South Carolina keeps her militia organised, and exacts 
 from the State officers a special oath of allegiance. Geor- 
 gia and Alabama contest the validity of treaties concluded 
 between the Federal government and the Cherokee and 
 Creek nations. (See Note 11.) Most of the States seek 
 to extend the limits of their individual sovereignty. The
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 97 
 
 doctrine of State rights has even insinuated itself into the 
 bosom of orthodox Philadelphia, for I see by the journals, 
 that a States' rights dinner is announced there. These 
 symptoms may become full of danger in a moment of 
 universal excitement. When the passions are at the helm, 
 there is no pause in the course. What, for instance, would 
 be the event, if Nullification should find an echo in the 
 same States of the North, where it has lately been so 
 firmly rejected ? It is they that have the most direct in- 
 terest in the establishment of a National Bank ; it is they 
 that suffer most from the financial combinations of General 
 Jackson, and from the objections of Southern statesmen 
 against the constitutionality of a bank. Although no allu- 
 sion is made to this danger, it is evident that the solicitude 
 of many persons has been aroused by it, and it is fortunate 
 that it is so, for a more general disposition to conciliatory 
 measures is the consequence. 
 
 The principle of separation is engaged in a deadly con- 
 flict with the spirit of centralisation or consolidation ; 
 hardly was the constitution signed, when twelve additional 
 articles or Amendments were immediately adopted, almost 
 all of which contained restrictions on the powers and 
 attributes of the Federal government. At the same time 
 the authority of Congress to charter a Bank, and give it 
 powers within the territories of the States, was contested ; 
 on this point, however, the principle of union was victo- 
 rious, and the Bank was established. Next, the right of 
 engaging in Internal Improvements was denied to Congress, 
 which, after a long struggle, has been compelled to resign 
 its claims ; General Jackson willed it, and it was done. 
 The National Road, which extends from Washington to 
 the western wilderness, and for which appropriations have 
 been annually voted, each professing to be the last, shows 
 what the Federal government could do and wished to do. 
 Even the uniform system of weights and measures, seems 
 13
 
 98 LETTER VIII. 
 
 to be on the point of being broken up, in spite of the ex- 
 press provisions of the constitution. Pennsylvania has 
 undertaken, nobody knows why, to establish regulations 
 on this point contrary to the general usage.* The public 
 debt is now paid ; that is one Federal tie the less. The 
 Bank, assailed afresh, is on the point of falling ; that is an 
 immense loss to the Federal principle. The Supreme 
 Court of the United States, one of the bulwarks of the 
 Union, is assaulted. The vast domain of the West, (see 
 Note 12,) the national property, seems in danger of being 
 given up to individual States, for this disposition is one of 
 the favorite topics of the democratic party. 
 
 But if centralisation comes off the worse in Federal 
 politics, it has the better within the States. The principal 
 States are engaged in constructing vast systems of internal 
 communication ; they are establishing for themselves finan- 
 cial systems, and many of them are about to set up great 
 banks, which shall exercise within their respective limits 
 the salutary influence possessed by the Bank of the United 
 States throughout the whole Union. Thus each State, as 
 it detaches itself from the Federal Union, organises more 
 fully its own powers, and binds more firmly together its 
 imperfectly combined elements. But, on the other hand, 
 industry and the spirit of enterprise restore to the Union 
 the strength, of which political jealousy and party quarrels 
 tend to deprive it. There is not a family at the North 
 that has not a son or a brother in the South ; the commu- 
 nity of interests daily grows stronger ; commerce is a 
 centripetal force ; along the whole Atlantic coast there is 
 only one mart, New York ; there is only one of importance 
 on the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans ; and the relations of 
 New York and New Orleans make these two cities, instead 
 
 * An act has been passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, providing that 
 2,000 pounds shall make a ton.
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE UNION. 99 
 
 of rivals, mutual supports. The railroads and the steam- 
 boats spread over the country the meshes of a net not 
 easily broken ; great distances vanish ; before long it will 
 be easy to go from Boston to New Orleans in eight days, 
 less time than is generally required to go from Brest to 
 Marseilles. When we reflect on the extent of the Roman 
 empire for ages, we cannot doubt the possibility of main- 
 taining a certain degree of unity on the American territory, 
 immeasurably vast as it appears to an eye accustomed to 
 the divisions of the map of Europe. The Romans had 
 not attained that degree of perfection in the means of inter- 
 course which we possess ; not only had they no know- 
 ledge of steamboats and railroads, and the telegraph, but 
 they had few highways, and were unacquainted with the 
 use of carriages hung on springs. The progress of com- 
 mercial and financial arts, makes it more easy to manage 
 the financial concerns of the universe now, than it was to 
 administer those of a province in the time of Cassar. I 
 cannot, therefore, make up my mind to believe, that the 
 Union will be broken up into fragments, driven in dif- 
 ferent directions and dashing one against another. 
 
 And yet it is very possible, that the Union will not con- 
 tinue, long on its present footing. Are the relations estab- 
 lished between the States by the constitution of 1789, the 
 most perfect that can be devised now ? Ought not the 
 unforeseen formation of the two great groups of the West 
 and the Southwest be followed by some modification of 
 those relations ? Would not the subdivision of the gene- 
 ral confederacy into three subordinate confederacies, con- 
 formable to the three great territorial divisions, the North, 
 the South, and the West, with a more intimate union 
 between the members of each group, have the effect of 
 satisfying the advocates of State rights, without endanger- 
 ing the principle of union? Would not this arrangement 
 be the means of giving more elasticity to the Union?
 
 100 LETTER IX. 
 
 Could not the existence of three partial confederacies be 
 reconciled with that of a central authority, invested with 
 the undisputed powers of the present Federal government, 
 one army, one navy, one diplomatic representation abroad, 
 one common right of citizenship, one Supreme Court, and, 
 as far as possible, one system of customs, and one Bank ? 
 These are questions, which it will, perhaps, be worth 
 while to examine some day, and even at no distant day. 
 But it would be desirable, that they should be approached 
 and discussed with calmness. If they should be unex- 
 pectedly raised in a period of irritation and bad feelings, 
 they would be the signal of a deplorable catastrophe. 
 Union gives strength ; North America, once parcelled out 
 into hostile fragments, would be of no more weight in the 
 balance of the world, than the feeble republics of South 
 America. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 THE FIRST PEOPLE INTHE WORLD. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 24, 1834. 
 
 WHICH is the first people in the world ? There is no 
 nation which does not make pretensions to this superiority. 
 Who in France has not sung in the words of Beranger, 
 " Queen of the world, oh my country ! oh France !" in 
 the full conviction, that the French nation was predesti- 
 ned to be forever at the head of the human race, to 
 eclipse all others, in peace and in war ? For myself, be- 
 fore I had crossed the frontier, I believed most implicitly,
 
 THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. 1Q1 
 
 that we were not only the most generous and chivalric of 
 people, the most intellectual and ingenious, the first in the 
 fine arts, the most amiable and brilliant ; but also that we 
 were the most enlightened, the first in political and indus- 
 trial arts, the most inventive and the most practical, in 
 short, the pattern-nation, perfect and unrivalled. Notwith- 
 standing the rains and fogs of Paris, I supposed our climate 
 the mildest and the most serene in the world ; in spite of 
 the Landes and Champagne, I considered it undeniable, 
 that our soil was the most fertile, our scenery the most 
 picturesque, in the world. Trusting to the reports of our 
 exhibitions of industrial skill, 1 was ready to swear that 
 we had left our neighbours of England a hundred leagues 
 behind, and that their manufacturers, to avoid being re- 
 duced to beggary by our competition, would soon be 
 obliged to come over to learn how to smelt and refine iron, 
 how to spin cotton, how to manufacture steel, how to 
 manage the most gigantic establishments in the most 
 economical manner, how to despatch mountains of mer- 
 chandise beyond sea most expeditiously. 
 
 After having crossed the frontier one gradually lowers 
 these magnificent pretensions ; patriotism becomes purer 
 and stronger. In visiting foreign parts one sees what is 
 wanting to the prosperity and glory of his country, and 
 how" it might be possible to add some jewels to her crown. 
 Thus it does not require long observation to see, that if 
 England might borrow much from us, we have not less to 
 receive from her. The English are not only more skilful 
 manufacturers and better merchants than we are, but they 
 possess in a higher degree than we do, those qualities 
 which enable men, after having conceived grand projects, 
 to carry them into execution. The English have that 
 practical sagacity and that unbending perseverance, by 
 which our Titan-like battles of the Revolution and the 
 Empire, our impetuous and devoted enthusiasm, our un-
 
 102 LETTER IX. 
 
 paralleled victories, our unmatched triumphs, were reduced 
 to treaties of Vienna, that is to say, were made to result in 
 our own humiliation, and in the enthronement of Great 
 Britain on the apex of the European pyramid. The Eng- 
 lish have less of the gift of speech, but more capacity for 
 action, than we have. And it is owing to this, that they 
 have found means to extend their colonial possessions, 
 while all other nations were losing theirs ; what they lost 
 in the West, they have supplied in the East tenfold. They 
 possess that political sense, to which they owe the peace- 
 ful settlement, during the last three years, of questions, 
 that seemed destined to shake the granite foundations of 
 their island and bury it in the sea. They have achieved 
 their Reform ; they have abolished the monopoly of the 
 East India Company ; they have reconstructed the Bank ; 
 they have abolished slavery. During this period, we have 
 been revolving about questions of secondary importance, 
 without being able to make a decision ; we do not know 
 how to go to work with monopolies, which, in comparison 
 with the colossal privileges of the East India Company, 
 are grains of sand ; we, who have given to the world the 
 most conclusive arguments in favour of liberty of com- 
 merce ! 
 
 If in Paris, we consider ourselves, in all, and for all, 
 and forever, the pattern-people, at London, the opinion is 
 not less exclusively and decidedly in favour of the Eng- 
 lish. In London, the duke of Wellington is called the 
 conqueror of Napoleon, which, indeed, is true to the letter, 
 but is nevertheless perfectly ridiculous, although Lord 
 Wellington is certainly an extraordinary man. I have seen 
 Englishmen pettishly shake their head, when they were 
 told that the sky of England was foggy ; with a little 
 malice, one might drive them to maintain, that they need 
 not envy the climate of Italy, and that even the atmosphere 
 of Manchester, where the sight of the sun is a rarity, has 

 
 THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. 103 
 
 charms, in spite of the slanders of its detractors, even for 
 those who have breathed the air of Naples. At Madrid, 
 that heroic people, which seems to be awaking at last from 
 its long lethargy, has not lost the habit of believing in the 
 supremacy of Spain, and there, they dream that they are 
 yet in the glorious days of Charles V., when the sun never 
 sat on the Spanish dominions. And we can pardon this in 
 the noble Castilians ; but I verily believe, also, that Don 
 Pedro and Don Miguel, those interminable pretenders, have 
 each an official journal which tells them daily, that the 
 breathless universe has its eyes fixed on their ragged 
 armies, and that the destinies of the world are settled at 
 Santarem and Setubal. At Constantinople, in the capital 
 of an empire which exists only because the other Euro- 
 pean powers cannot agree in the division of the spoils, 
 they call us Christian dogs. In Rome the people still call 
 themselves Romans, and this ridiculous misnomer really 
 makes the Transtiberine populace believe, that military 
 glory is yet the lot of the country, and that the Romans 
 will soon resume the character of lords of the world, mag- 
 nanimously raising the humble and crushing the pride of 
 the powerful (Parcere siibjcctis, &c.) ! In Vienna, on the 
 contrary, everybody thinks that Rome is no longer in 
 Rome, but that it is, of right and in fact, in the archducal 
 capital, that the emperor is heir by lineal descent to 
 Augustus and Trajan. The devise of an early prince of 
 the house of Austria (A. E. I. O. U.),* attests that this 
 pretension is almost as old as the house of Hapsburg. In 
 Prussia, meanwhile, the young nobles, proud of having 
 studied at the great universities of Jena and Berlin, and of 
 having worn the sword in an army which was once the 
 great Frederic's, affect an utter disdain for the Austrians. 
 Elated by the rapid extension of their country, which has 
 
 Austria. 
 
 Austria est imperare orbi universe ; the empire of the world belongs to 
 itria. 
 

 
 104 LETTER IX. 
 
 not, however, yet reached its full growth, the Prussians 
 look upon their sandy land as the cradle of a new civili- 
 sation. It seems as if the waters of the Spree had some 
 miraculous qualities, and that whoever has not tasted them, 
 has but four senses instead of five. At St. Petersburg and 
 Moscow, no one doubts, that the sword of the emperor, 
 thrown into the scales of the world's destinies, would at 
 once overbear the opposite balance. Perhaps we of West- 
 ern Europe have done our part in filling the Russians with 
 these high notions of the influence of the Czar. Thus 
 in Europe, each nation arrogates to itself the first rank, and 
 I do not see why the Americans should be more modest 
 than the people on the other side of the Atlantic. The 
 miracles which they have accomplished in fifty years give 
 them a right to be proud, and they, also, in their turn, are 
 persuaded that they are the first people in the world, and 
 they boast loudly of their preeminence. 
 
 The fact is, there is no chosen people, on whom superi- 
 ority is entailed for ages. The Jewish nation, in which this 
 notion of predestination seemed to be most deeply rooted, 
 has for centuries afforded the most melancholy refutation 
 of the doctrine. Since the age of Richelieu and the 
 Revolution of 1688, that is, since Spain has fallen asleep, 
 France and England have been at the head of civilisation, 
 and have divided the supremacy between themselves ; the 
 one ruling by the theoretical, the other by the practical ; 
 the one giving the tone in politics, the other in taste, the 
 arts, and manners. But what were France and England 
 three centuries ago, in the time of Charles V., when the 
 generals of that emperor and king slew Bayard at Re- 
 becque, made Francis I. prisoner at Pavia, and the Pope in 
 Rome, whilst four thousand miles further west, Cortez was 
 conquering for him the proud empire of Mont-ezuma ? 
 Prussia, who now divides with Austria the dominion of 
 Germany, and who is worthy of that dignity, who is the
 
 THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. 105 
 
 youthful, the aspiring, the ambitious Germany, full of the 
 future, as Austria is the patriarchal, sober, prudent, con- 
 servative Germany, clinging to the past and the old, what 
 was Prussia three generations ago ? What shall we all be, 
 French, English, Prussians, and Austrians three centuries 
 hence, or perhaps one hundred years hence ? Who can 
 say that some northern blast, finding us divided, and en- 
 feebled by our divisions, will not have laid low those who 
 are now so high and haughty ? Who knows if the vi- 
 gourous race which is now bursting forth from this virgin 
 soil, will not then have passed us in their turn, as we have 
 outstripped our predecessors ? Who can foretell, whether 
 the two gigantic figures that are now rising above the 
 horizon, the one in the East with one foot on Moscow and 
 one just ready to fall on Constantinople, the other in the 
 West, as yet half hidden by the vast forests of the New 
 World, whose huge limbs stretch from the mouths of the 
 St. Lawrence to those of the Mississippi ; who can foresee, 
 whether these youthful Titans, who are watching each 
 .other across the Atlantic, and already touch hands on the 
 Pacific, will not soon divide the empire of the world ? 
 
 Civilisation is a treasure, to which each generation adds 
 something in transmitting it to its heirs, and which passes 
 from hand to hand, from people to people, from country to 
 country. Setting out from Asia it was four thousand 
 years in reaching the borders of the Atlantic Ocean. Wo 
 to the nations, that having become depositaries of the trea- 
 sure, instead of keeping it with watchful care and labour- 
 ing to increase it, lay it down by the road-side, and waste 
 their time and strength in foolish quarrels ; for they will 
 soon be robbed of their trust ! The Americans are the 
 most enterprising of men, and the most aspiring of people ; 
 if we continue to be swallowed up in our barren' disputes, 
 they are the people to snatch from us at unawares the pre- 
 14 '
 
 106 LETTER IX. 
 
 cious charge of the destinies of our race, and to place them* 
 selves at the head of its march. 
 
 Each people has its qualities, which are developed by 
 education, which at certain moments shine with peculiar 
 brilliancy, like a beacon light towards which the eyes of 
 mankind are directed, and by which its march is guided, 
 and which always command the esteem or love or respect 
 of others. The people of the United States most undeni- 
 bly have theirs. No people is so peculiarly fitted by its 
 intrinsic character, as well as by the circumstances of the 
 territory and the condition of the population, for demo- 
 cratic institutions. The Americans possess, therefore, in 
 the highest degree, the better features of democracy, and 
 they have also its inseparable defects ; but if there is some- 
 thing in them to blame, there is still more to praise. There 
 is much here for a European to learn, who should come 
 to seek, not subjects for fault-finding, satire, and sarcasm 
 (which have become vulgar common-places, since the small 
 coin of Voltaire and Byron has passed through so many 
 hands), but positive facts, which might be imitated in our 
 old countries, with the necessary modifications required by 
 the difference between our circumstances and the condi- 
 tion of America. x Almost all English travellers in this 
 country have seen a great deal that was bad and scarcely 
 any thing good ; the portrait they have drawn of America 
 and the Americans, is a caricature, which, like all good 
 caricatures, has some resemblance to the original. The 
 Americans have a right to deny the jurisdiction of the tri- 
 bunal, for they have a right to be tried by their peers, and 
 it does not belong to the most complete aristocracy in 
 Europe, the English aristocracy, to sit in judgment on a 
 democracy. Yet all the English travellers in America 
 have belonged to the aristocracy by their connexions or 
 their opinions, or were aspiring to it, or aped its habits and 
 judgments, that they might seem to belong to it.
 
 THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. 107 
 
 A Yorkshire farmer or a Birmingham mechanic would 
 certainly pass a very different judgment ; they would pro- 
 bably be as exclusively disposed to praise, as the most dis- 
 dainful tourists have been to blame. And the farmers and 
 mechanics count for something in the numbers of the 
 English population and in the elements of the British 
 prosperity. Suppose an Ohio or Illinois farmer, after hav- 
 ing sold his flour and salt pork to advantage, should enact 
 the nabob six months in England, and on his return should 
 describe, with the rude eloquence of the West, the dis- 
 tress of the British operatives, the corn laws, the poor 
 rates, the frightful condition of the Irish peasantry, the 
 impressment of sailors, the sale of military offices, and to 
 complete his picture of manners, should add a boxing 
 match, a scene of the guests at a dinner rolling dead-drunk 
 under the table, and of the sale of a wife by her husband 
 in open market ; if he should give such a picture to his 
 countrymen as a political and moral portrait of England, 
 the English would shrug their shoulders, and with reason. 
 Yet his story would be founded on facts, and could not be 
 said to be actually false in any particular. Now such a 
 story would be an exact counterpart of most of the repre- 
 sentations of America by English travellers. Do not to 
 others what you would not have others do to you. 
 
 There is one thing in the United States that strikes a 
 stranger on stepping ashore, and is of a character to silence 
 his sentiments of national pride, particularly if he is an 
 Englishman ; it is the appearance of general ease in the 
 condition of the people of this country. While European 
 communities are more or less cankered with the sore of 
 pauperism, for which their ablest statesmen have as yet been 
 able to find no healing balm, there are here no paupers, at 
 least not in the Northern and Western States, which have 
 protected themselves from the leprosy of slavery. If a 
 few individuals are seen, they are only an imperceptible
 
 108 LETTER IX. 
 
 minority of dissolute or improvident persons, commonly 
 people of colour, or some newly landed emigrants, who 
 have not been able to adopt industrious habits. Nothing is 
 more easy than to live and to live well by labour. Objects 
 of the first necessity, bread, meat, sugar, tea, coffee, fuel, 
 are in general cheaper here than in France, and wages are 
 double or triple. I happened, a few days ago, to be on 
 the line of a railroad in process of construction, where 
 they were throwing up some embankments. This sort of 
 labour, which merely requires force, without skill, is com- 
 monly done in the United States by Irish new-comers, who 
 have no resource but their arm, no quality but muscular 
 strength. These Irish labourers are fed and lodged, and 
 hear their bill of fare ; three meals a day, and at each 
 meal plenty of meat and wheat bread ; coffee and sugar at 
 two meals, and butter* once a day ; in the course of the 
 day, from six to eight glasses of whiskey are given them 
 according to the state of the weather. Beside which they 
 receive in money 40 cents a day under the most unfavour- 
 able circumstances, often from 60 to 75 cents. In France 
 the same labour is worth about 24 cents a day the labour- 
 ers finding themselves. 
 
 This positive and undeniable fact of the general ease, 
 is connected with another, which gives it a singular im- 
 portance in the eyes of a European, who is the friend of 
 progressive reforms, and the enemy of violence ; the prev- 
 alence of radicalism in politics. The term democrat, 
 which elsewhere would fill even the republicans with terror, 
 is here greeted with acclamations, and the name of Demo- 
 cratic is zealously claimed by every party as its exclusive 
 property. But this is the only kind of property which is 
 called in question ; it is true that material property rapidly 
 disappears in this country, unless it is preserved by the 
 
 * Butter is dearer in the United States than in France.
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 109 
 
 most constant vigilance, and renewed with untiring indus- 
 try. But as long as it exists, it is the object of profound 
 respect, which, I must confess, has rather surprised me. 
 I should have expected that the social theory would have 
 borrowed some notions from the predominant political 
 theory ; but there are those in Europe, who are not there 
 considered the boldest speculators on this subject, who here 
 would be looked upon as the most audacious innovators. 
 From this simple statement, it seems natural to infer, that 
 valuable lessons are to be learned here by those who seek 
 to solve the great question that now agitates Europe, the 
 amelioration of the greatest number. It would be inte- 
 resting to inquire into the causes of this state of things, 
 and to examine whether, with certain modifications, it 
 could not be transferred to Europe, and particularly to 
 France. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 
 
 CHARLESTON, MAY 28, 1834. 
 
 THE great flood of civilisation, which has poured over 
 the vast, regions of the West, in the south and the north, 
 from the great lakes to the Cape of Florida, has flowed 
 on with a wonderful power and an admirable regularity. 
 Emigration has taken place, along the whole line of march, 
 from east to west. The inhabitants of New England,* 
 
 * The name of Yankee was first applied in derision, but the New Eng- 
 landers, thinking that they have ennobled it, have adopted it.
 
 110 LETTER X. 
 
 after having first spread themselves over their original ter- 
 ritory, and founded the States of Maine and Vermont, 
 have thrown themselves into the State of New York ; 
 thence, keeping as much as possible along the northern 
 frontier of the United States, they have extended all 
 along the coasts of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, and over- 
 run the vast delta comprised between the Ohio and the 
 Upper Mississippi, which now contains the States of Ohio, 
 Indiana, and Illinois, and the Territory of Michigan. The 
 New York and Pennsylvania emigrants have spread them- 
 selves comparatively little beyond the limits of their own 
 territory, which are very extensive, and were thinly peo- 
 pled in 1783. They have, however, furnished a small 
 contingent to the great army of emigration from New 
 England, and have helped to occupy the vast tract above- 
 mentioned. Virginia, after having settled her western part 
 with her own sons, has given birth to Kentucky, and then, 
 acting the same part in the south as New England in the 
 north, has sent forth to the Gulf of Mexico those numer- 
 ous swarms that have invaded the southwest. North 
 Carolina has taken part in this task, and has beside a child 
 of her own in Tennessee. Georgia and South Carolina 
 have contributed to create Alabama and Mississippi, and 
 Tennessee and Kentucky have in turn furnished offsets 
 for Missouri and Arkansas. 
 
 Thus the States in which there are no slaves, have 
 brought forth a family of truly democratic republics, that 
 is to say, with an essentially farming population, holding 
 no slaves, and, excepting the vine, cultivating all the pro- 
 ductions of temperate Europe. These young States are 
 founded on equality and the subdivision of property, for 
 most of the farms do not exceed 80 to 160 acres. The 
 Southern States, on the other hand, have created aristo- 
 cratical republics, based on slavery and the accumulation 
 of property in a few hands, still more exclusively agricui-
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 tural than the north-western States, and chiefly occupied 
 in cultivating cotton, a precious commodity, which now 
 furnishes for exportation, inclusive of what is consumed 
 in the North, an annual value of 40 or 50 million dollars.* 
 Thus amongst all the columns of emigration, two particu- 
 larly attract attention, and form of themselves the main 
 body of the army, the others are only auxiliaries ; these 
 two great masses are the New England and the Virginia 
 columns. 
 
 That part of Virginia which was most peopled during 
 the war of Independence has a low and nearly level sur- 
 face, and a sandy, and in general, very poor soil. Along the 
 rivers there are tracts formerly productive, but even these 
 have been exhausted by the cultivation of tobacco. The 
 proprietors of these estates must have been early led to 
 think of quitting their plantations for the fertile lands of 
 Kentucky, then occupied, or rather overrun, by warlike 
 savages, of whom they were the favourite hunting-ground. 
 Some bold and hardy pioneers, at the head of whom was 
 
 Exports of cotton from the United States. (DM. 146, Ho. of Reps. 
 
 Sess. 24 
 
 Cong.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Value. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Value. 
 
 1792 
 
 142,000 
 
 51,470 
 
 1822 
 
 144,700,000 
 
 24,000,000 
 
 1793 
 
 500,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 1823 
 
 173,700,000 
 
 23,500,000 
 
 1794 
 
 1,660,000 
 
 500,000 
 
 1824 
 
 142,100,000 
 
 21,500,000 
 
 Mean 766,600 237,000 Mean 153,700,000 23,000,000 
 
 1802 27,500,000 
 
 1803 41,100,000 
 
 1804 38,100,000 
 
 5,250,000 
 7,750,000 
 7,750,000 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 
 322,250,000 31,750,000 
 324,500,000 3(5,000,000 
 384,750,000 49,500,000 
 
 Mean 35,566,000 6,920,000 Mean 343,800,000 39,060,000 
 The domestic consumption at present amounts to about 250,000 bales, or 
 about 100 million pounds, of the value of about ten millions. The crop 
 of 1835 was 1,350,000 bales or about 500 million pounds, of the value of 
 60 millions. The yearly value of the wine made in France is about twice 
 that sum, but the value of the export does not exceed thirteen and a half 
 million dollars.
 
 1 12 LETTER X. 
 
 Boon, first ventured across the mountains with their rifles, 
 and bravely sustained a bloody contest with the Indians. 
 After many desperate fights, in which more than one un- 
 known hero fell under the bullet or the tomahawk of some 
 red-skinned Hector, after numerous assaults, in which 
 more than one matron enacted the part of our Jeanne 
 Hachette,* after many alarms and much suffering, the 
 genius of civilisation carried it. At the call of the pio- 
 neers, roused by the fame of their exploits, the planters 
 of the coast set out on their pilgrimage ; arriving with 
 their slaves, they cleared and cultivated large tracts, in the 
 midst of which they led a patriarchal life, surrounded by 
 their servants and flocks, following with ardour the chase 
 of wild beasts, and sometimes of Indians, and too often 
 spending the proceeds of their crop in betting on the speed 
 of their horses, of which they are very proud, and whose 
 pedigree is better known to them than their own. More 
 lately, when the demand for cotton had increased, in con- 
 sequence of the improvements in machinery, and the 
 steamboat had opened the way into the heart of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley, they have removed southwards, always taking 
 their slaves with them ; a prospect of future wealth and 
 prosperity was thus opened for the south. 
 
 The industrious sons of New England likewise bade 
 farewell to the rocky and ungrateful soil of their birth- 
 place ; loading a wagon with a plough, a bed, a barrel of 
 salt meat, the indispensable supply of tea and molasses, 
 a Bible and a wife, and with his axe on his shoulder, the 
 Yankee sets out for the West, without a servant, without 
 an assistant, often without a companion, to build himself a 
 
 * [This French heroine distinguished herself at the siege of Beauvais, in 
 1472, when she snatched a standard from the hands of the assailants. Her 
 real name seems to have been Fourquet, that of Hachette (Hatchet) having 
 been probably assumed or given to her, like those of Wat Tyler and Jack 
 Carter, of English history. TRANS.]
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. H3 
 
 log hut, six hundred miles from his father's roof, and clear 
 away a spot for a farm in the midst of the boundless forest. 
 The first of these wanderers went from Connecticut, the 
 land of steady habits, of Puritans among Puritans. 
 
 The Virginian and the Yankee have planted themselves 
 in the wilderness, each in a manner conformable to his 
 nature and condition. The part they have taken in found- 
 ing the new States of the West, explains the fact so often 
 mentioned of fifty or sixty members of Congress being 
 natives of Virginia or Connecticut. In this conquest over 
 nature, Europe has not remained an idle spectator ; she 
 has sent forth vigorous labourers, who have co-operated 
 with the sons of New England, for slavery drives them 
 from the men of the South. Many Irish and Scotch, a 
 number of Germans, Swiss, and some French, are now 
 settled in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The 
 traveller who descends the Ohio, passes on the way Galli- 
 polis, a French settlement, Vevay, a Swiss village, and 
 Marietta, so called in honour of Marie Antoinette.* The 
 terminations in burg are scattered amongst Indian names, 
 Jacksonvilles, Washingtons, and Columbias. But the co- 
 operation of Europeans does not deprive the Yankees of 
 the principal share in the honour of the work ; they began 
 it, they have borne and still bear the burden and heat of 
 the day. In comparison with them, the European has 
 been only the eleventh-hour-man, the apprentice, the hire- 
 ling. The fusion of the European with the Yankee takes 
 place but slowly, even on the new soil of the West ; for 
 the Yankee is not a man of promiscuous society ; he be- 
 lieves that Adam's oldest son was a Yankee. Enough, 
 however, of foreign blood has been mingled with the 
 
 * [If the author means to imply that it was so called by French settlers 
 he is in error, as it is well known to have been founded and named by the 
 first New England colony in Ohio. Neither is he correct, if, as seems to be 
 the case, he supposes all the burgs to be German towns. TRANS.] 
 
 15
 
 114 LETTER X. 
 
 Yankee blood to modify the primitive character of the 
 New England race, and to form a third American type, 
 that of the West, whose features are not yet sharply de- 
 fined, but are daily assuming more distinctness ; this type 
 is characterised by its athletic forms and ambitious pre- 
 tensions, and seems destined ultimately to become supe- 
 rior to the others. 
 
 The Yankee and the Virginian are very unlike each 
 other ; they have no great love for each other, arid are 
 often at variance. They are the same men who cut each 
 other's throats in England, under the name of Roundheads 
 and Cavaliers. In England, they patched up a peace by 
 the interposition of a third dynasty, which was neither 
 Stuart nor Cromwell. In America, where there was no 
 power to mediate between them, they would have devoured 
 each other as they did in England, had not Providence 
 thrown them wide apart, one party at the south, the other 
 at the north, leaving between them the territory now 
 occupied by the justes-milieux States of New York and 
 Pennsylvania, with their satellites, New Jersey and Dela- 
 ware. 
 
 The Virginian of pure race is frank, hearty, open, cor- 
 dial in his manners, noble in his sentiments, elevated in 
 his notions, he is a worthy descendant of the English 
 gentleman. Surrounded, from infancy, by his slaves, who 
 relieve him from all personal exertion, he is rather indis- 
 posed to activity, and is even indolent. He is generous 
 and profuse ; around him, but rather in the new States 
 than in impoverished Virginia, abundance reigns. When 
 the cotton crop has been good and the price is high, he 
 invites everybody, excepting only the slaves that cultivate 
 his fields, to partake in his wealth, without much thought 
 of next year's produce. To him, the practice of hospitality 
 is at once a duty, a pleasure, and a happiness. Like the 
 Eastern patriarchs or Homer's heroes, he spits an ox to
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. H5 
 
 regale the guest whom Providence sends him and an old 
 friend recommends to his attention, and to moisten this 
 solid repast, he offers Madeira, of which he is as proud as 
 of his horses, which has been twice to the East Indies, 
 and has been ripening full twenty years. He loves the 
 institutions of his country, yet he shows with pride his 
 family plate, the arms on which, half effaced by time, 
 attest his descent from the first colonists, and prove that 
 his ancestors were of a good family in England. When 
 his mind has been cultivated by study, and a tour in 
 Europe has polished his manners and refined his imagina- 
 tion, there is no place in the world in which he would not 
 appear to advantage, no destiny too high for him to reach ; 
 he is one of those, whom a man is glad to have as a com- 
 panion, and desires as a friend. Ardent and warm-hearted, 
 he is of the block from which great orators are made. He 
 is better able to command men, than to conquer nature 
 and subdue the soil. When he has a certain degree of 
 the spirit of method, and, I will not say of will, (for he 
 has enough of th,t), but of that active perseverance so 
 common among his brethren of the North, he has all the 
 qualities needful to form a great statesman. 
 
 The Yankee, on the contrary, is reserved, cautious, 
 distrustful ; he is thoughtful and pensive, but equable ; 
 his manners are without grace, modest but dignified, cold, 
 and often unprepossessing ; he is narrow in his ideas, but 
 practical, and possessing the idea of the proper, he never 
 rises to the grand. He has nothing chivalric about him, 
 and yet he is adventurous, and he loves a roving life. His 
 imagination is active and original, producing, however, not 
 poetry, but drollery. The Yankee is the laborious ant ; 
 he is industrious and sober, frugal, and, on the sterile soil 
 of New England, niggardly ; transplanted to the promised 
 land in the West, he continues moderate in his habits, but 
 less inclined to count the cents. In New England he has
 
 116 LETTER X. 
 
 a large share of prudence, but once thrown into the midst 
 of the treasures of the West, he becomes a speculator, a 
 gambler even, although he has a great horror of cards, 
 dice, and all games of hazard and even of skill, except the 
 innocent game at bowls. He is crafty, sly. always calcu- 
 lating, boasting even of the tricks which he plays upon 
 the careless or trusting buyer, because he looks upon them 
 as marks of his superior sagacity, and well provided with 
 mental reservations to lull his conscience. With all his 
 nice subtleties, he is, nevertheless, expeditious in business, 
 because he knows the value of time. His house is a sanc- 
 tuary, which he does not open to the profane ; he is little 
 given to hospitality, or rather he displays it only on rare oc- 
 casions, and then he does so on a great scale. He is a ready 
 speaker, and a close reasoner, but not a brilliant orator. 
 For a statesman, he wants that greatness of mind and soul 
 which enables a man to enter into and love another's na- 
 ture, and leads him naturally to consult his neighbour's 
 good, in consulting his own. He is individualism incarnate ; 
 in him the spirit of locality and division is carried to the 
 utmost.* But if he is not a great statesman, he is an able 
 administrator, an unrivalled man of business. If he is not 
 suited to command men, he has no equal in acting upon 
 things, in combining, arranging, and giving them a value. 
 There are nowhere merchants of more consummate ability 
 than those of Boston. 
 
 But it is particularly as the colonist of the wilderness, 
 that the Yankee is admirable ; fatigue has no hold on him. 
 He has not, like the Spaniard, the capacity to bear hunger 
 and thirst, but he has the much superior faculty of finding, 
 at all times and in all places, something to eat and to drink, 
 
 * In Massachusetts, with a population of 610,000 souls, the House of 
 Representatives consists of about 600 members; the most petty village must 
 have its Representative.
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 117 
 
 and of being always able to contrive a shelter from the 
 cold, first for his wife and children, and afterward for him- 
 self. He grapples with nature in close fight, and more 
 unyielding than she, subdues her at last, obliging her to 
 surrender at discretion, to yield whatever he wills, and to 
 take the shape he chooses. Like Hercules, he conquers 
 the hydra of the pestilential morass, and chains the rivers ; 
 more daring than Hercules, he extends his dominion not 
 only over the land, but over the sea ; he is the best sailor 
 in the world, the ocean is his tributary, and enriches him 
 with the oil of her whales and with all her lesser fry. More 
 wise than the hero of the twelve labours, he knows no 
 Omphale that is able to seduce, no Dejanira, whose poi- 
 soned gifts can balk his searching glance. In this respect 
 he is rather a Ulysses, who has his Penelope, counts upon 
 her faith, and remains steadfastly true to her. He does 
 not even need to stop his ears, when he passes near the 
 Syrens, for in him the tenderest passions are deadened by 
 religious austerity and devotion to his business. Like 
 Ulysses in another point, he has a bag full of shifts ; over- 
 taken at night by a storm in the woods, in a half hour, 
 with no other resource than his knife, he will have made 
 a shelter for himself and his horse. In winter, caught in 
 one of those snow-storms, which are unknown among us, 
 he will construct a sled in the twinkling of an eye, and 
 keep on his way, like an Indian, by watching the bark of 
 the trees. Thus to the genius of business, by means of 
 which he turns to profit whatever the earth yields him, he 
 joins the genius of industry, which makes her prolific, and 
 that of mechanical skill, which fashions her produce to his 
 wants. He is incomparable as a pioneer, unequalled as a 
 settler of the wilderness. 
 
 The Yankee has set his mark on the United States 
 during the last half century. He has been eclipsed by
 
 118 LETTER X. 
 
 Virginia in the counsels of the nation ;* but he has in 
 turn had the upper hand throughout the country, and 
 eclipsed her on her own soil ; for in order to arouse the 
 Virginian from his southern indolence, it has been neces- 
 sary that the Yankee should come to set him an example 
 of activity and enterprise at his own door. But for the 
 Yankee, the vast cotton plantations of the South would 
 still be an uncultivated waste. It was a Yankee, Ely 
 .Whitney, who, toward the end of the last century, inven- 
 ted the cotton-gin, which has made the fortune of the 
 South. To give a speculation success in the South, some 
 Yankee must have come a thousand miles to suggest the 
 idea to the natives, and carry off the profit before their 
 eyes. New England has given only two Presidents to 
 the Union, both popular on the eve of their election, both 
 unpopular on the morrow, both rejected at the end of their 
 first term, while all the others have been natives of Vir- 
 ginia or South Carolina, and have been rechosen for a 
 second term. But then what a revenge has she taken in 
 business matters, at the North and the South, in the East 
 as well as the West ! Here the Yankee is a true Marquis 
 of Carabas. At Baltimore as well as at Boston, in New 
 Orleans as well as at Salem, in New York as well as at 
 Portland, if a merchant is mentioned who has made and 
 kept a large fortune by sagacity and forecast, you will find 
 that he is a Yankee. If you pass a plantation in the 
 South in better order than the others, with finer avenues, 
 with the negroes' cabins better arranged and more comfort- 
 able, you will be told, " Oh ! that is a Yankee's ; he is a 
 smart man /" In a village in Missouri, by the side of a 
 
 * At this time, for instance, ten Senators out of 48 are natives of Virginia. 
 Of seven presidents four have been from Virginia. Many of the members 
 of Congress are natives of New England, and particularly of Connecticut, 
 but they are generally laborious, second-rate men, rather than men of influ- 
 ence and superior abilities.
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. H9 
 
 house with broken windows, dirty in its outward appear- 
 ance, around the door of which a parcel of ragged chil- 
 dren are quarrelling and fighting, you may see another, 
 freshly painted, surrounded by a simple, but neat and nice- 
 ly white-washed fence, with a dozen of carefully trimmed 
 trees about it, and through the windows in a small room 
 shining with cleanliness, you may espy some nicely combed 
 little boys, and some young girls dressed in almost the 
 last Paris fashion. Both houses belong to farmers, but one 
 of them is from North Carolina, and the other from New 
 England. On the western rivers, you will hear a boat 
 mentioned which never meets with an accident, and in 
 which all travellers and merchants are eager to take their 
 passage ; the master is a Yankee. Along side of the levee 
 at New Orleans, you may be struck with the fine appear- 
 ance of a ship, which all the passers-by stop to admire ; 
 the master is also a Yankee. 
 
 The preeminence of the Yankee in the colonisation of 
 the country, has made him the arbiter of manners and ,- 
 customs. It is from him that the country has taken a 
 general hue of austere severity, that is religious and even 
 bigoted ; it is through him that all sorts of amusements, 
 which .among us are considered as innocent relaxations, 
 are here proscribed as immoral pleasures. It is he that has 
 introduced the Prison Reform, multiplied schools, founded 
 Temperance Societies (See Note 13). It is through his 
 agency, with his money, that the Missionaries are endeav- 
 ouring silently to found colonies in the South Seas, for the 
 benefit of the Union. If we wished to form a single type, 
 representing the American character of the present mo- 
 ment as a single whole, it would be necessary to take at 
 least three-fourths of the Yankee race, and to mix with it 
 hardly one fourth of the Virginian. The physical labour 
 of colonisation is now nearly brought to an end ; the 
 physical basis of society is laid. On this base it becomes
 
 120 LETTER X. 
 
 necessary to raise a social structure of yet unknown form, 
 but which, I am fully convinced, will be on a new plan, 
 for all the materials are new ; and besides, neither humani- 
 ty nor Providence ever repeats itself. Which of the two 
 races is best suited to execute this new task ? I cannot 
 tell ; but it seems to me that the Virginian is now about 
 to take his turn, and that in the phase which the United 
 States are now on the point of entering, the social quali- 
 ties of the Virginian will obtain the superiority, that na- 
 turally belonged to the laborious Yankee in the period of 
 settling the forest. In a word, I believe, that, if the 
 Union lasts, and the West continues to form a united mass 
 from the falls of Niagara to New Orleans, this third type of 
 the west, which is now forming and already aspires to 
 rule over the others, will take a great deal from the Vir- 
 ginian and very little from the Yankee. 
 
 It is no small advantage to a people to combine within 
 itself two types with different characteristics, when they 
 unite harmoniously in composing a common national cha- 
 racter. A people of which all the individual members are 
 referrible to a single type, is among nations what an un- 
 married man is among individuals ; it is a sort of hermit, 
 its life is monotonous ; the strongest and sweetest feelings 
 of human nature are dormant in it ; it continues stationa- 
 ary ; there is nothing to spur it forward. Such was an- 
 cient Egypt. A people consisting of two types, on the 
 contrary, when neither has an oppressive superiority over 
 the other, enjoys a complete existence ; its life is a perpe- 
 tual interchange of ideas and sensations, like that of a mar- 
 ried pair. It has the power of reproducing and regener- 
 ating itself. Each of the two natures alternately acts and 
 reposes itself, without ever being inactive. By turns each 
 gains the superiority and yields to the other ; and thus 
 according to circumstances, different qualities come into 
 play. The two natures mutually support and relieve
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 121 
 
 each other, they stimulate each other, and through this 
 wholesome rivalry, the nation that combines them in itself, 
 reaches high destinies. 
 
 History shows that the progress of humanity has been 
 constantly promoted by the reciprocal action and reaction 
 of two natures, or two races, sometimes friends, oftener 
 enemies or rivals. The most general fact in the history 
 of our civilisation is the struggle between the East and 
 the West, from the expedition of the Argonauts and the war 
 of Troy, to the battle of Lepanto and the siege of Vienna 
 by the Turks. In this great drama, it was not merely to 
 shed rivers of blood, that Providence has dashed against 
 each other Europeans and Asiatics, Greeks and Persians, 
 Romans, Carthaginians, and Parthians, Saracens and 
 Franks, Venitians, Turks, and Poles ; blows have not 
 been the only thing exchanged between Europe and the 
 Orient. If you wish to know what the West has gained 
 from contact with the East, even when, they met sword 
 in hand, look around you ; most of the fruit trees that en- 
 rich your fields, the vine which gladdens the heart, the 
 silk and cotton that adorn your houses and your persons, 
 these are the spoils of your Eastern wars ; sugar and coffee, 
 the cultivation of which has changed the political balance 
 of the world, were brought into Europe from the East, the 
 one by yourselves, the other by the Arabs, when they 
 made themselves masters of Spain. The mariner's com- 
 pass, which has given a new continent to civilisation, and 
 established the dominion of man over the before uncon- 
 quered deep, was the gift of the East. Your arts and your 
 sciences are of Oriental origin ; the secrets of Algebra were 
 stolen from the Moors of Spain by a monk ; your system 
 of numeration, the basis of all your financial improve- 
 ments, bears the name of the Arabs ; your chivalry was 
 brought from Asia by the Crusaders. Christianity, the 
 mother of modern Europe, would not have existed in 
 16
 
 122 LETTER X. 
 
 the West, had not the Roman legions conquered Judea 
 which contained its germ, had not the Roman empire con- 
 tained the school of Alexandria in which that germ could 
 put forth, and had not the Rome of the Caesars been 
 raised as a pedestal for the successors of St. Peter, from 
 which they might rule over the East and the West. 
 
 Behold the Roman people ; its noble career was a con- 
 tinual succession of wars, followed by as many incorpora- 
 tions of the conquered, alliances, real marriages, which 
 always give it a new vigour. It begins with the double 
 figure of Romulus and Remus ; then follow the Romans 
 and Sabines, then Rome and Alba, next Rome and the 
 Latins, and next Rome and Carthage. It might be called 
 a young sultan, who carries off a captive at the point of 
 the sword, and makes her his favourite until he grows 
 tired of her, or until he finds another more worthy of his 
 love. It goes on in this way, changing, and daily rising 
 in the successive subjects of its choice, until it meets with 
 Greece, which becomes not an object of a passing caprice, 
 but a favorite sultana. This Union of the Greek and 
 Roman natures gave its splendour to imperial Rome, and 
 rest to the world. Its destiny once entwined with that of 
 Greece, the Roman people paused to enjoy ; and with this 
 purpose, substituted the rule of the Caesars for the republi- 
 can constitution, and Greek rhetoricians and players, and 
 emperors, voluptuous like the disciples of Epicurus, or 
 philosophers, like Pericles, for the stern and severe aris- 
 tocracy of earlier days. What is the history of Greece, 
 but a continual oscillation between the austere Lacedas- 
 mon and the brilliant Athens, between the country of 
 Lycurgus and Leonidas, and that of Solon, Aspasia, and 
 Alcibiades. United, they acquired an indomitable energy, 
 and supported the shock of all Asia. Unfortunately they 
 had too little feeling of a common nationality, and too 
 much of local jealousy ; almost perpetually divided, they
 
 THE YANKEE AND THE VIRGINIAN. 123 
 
 never completely extended their sway over Greece itself, 
 and when the Greek race was about to reach its zenith, 
 neither was destined to lead it thither, but Providence 
 raised up a man in the North, before whom the earth was 
 silent. 
 
 Whilst a nation comprises an indefinite number of types 
 mixed together without order and without rank, it resem- 
 bles a body not yet in a state of consistency ; it has no 
 definable character, no fixed destination ; it is incapable of 
 achieving any thing great. Thus from the time of the 
 war of the old German electors against the Holy Empire, 
 and of the treaty of Westphalia, which sanctioned their 
 independence and broke in pieces the former unity of the 
 nation, Germany continued under an eclipse, until the 
 period of the rise of the house of Brandenburg from the 
 midst of the anarchy of the little German States, when a 
 rival was given to the house of Austria and a strong dual- 
 ism established. Dualism is not, however, the only mode 
 in which a society can be constituted, at once solid 
 and elastic. When a third type, whose superiority is 
 admitted by the others, or which partakes sufficiently of 
 the nature of each to serve as a bond and a mediator be- 
 tween them, exists, the social organisation is then in a high 
 degree vigourous ; for then, the harmony between the two 
 primitive types has ceased to be an abstraction, it has be- 
 come a substance. In some cases this third personage of 
 the drama becomes so indispensable to the action, that it 
 must be supplied at any rate, and its great prerogatives de- 
 volve on a transient actor ; thus in Greece, Thebes played 
 this part during a short period. Sometimes it has been 
 filled by an aristocracy, which has served as a check to 
 both parties in turn ; an aristocracy worthy of the name 
 is eminently qualified for this task, because it combines 
 the two natures in itself, feels the reaction of their passions 
 influencing itself, and has the energy necessary either to
 
 124 LETTER X. 
 
 curb or spur them on, as the exigency of the case requires. 
 There is no country in which dualism is more admirably 
 developed than in the United States ; each of the two na- 
 tures has an open field, each a distinct career of industry ; 
 each possesses in the highest degree the qualities necessary 
 for its peculiar position. Considered in respect to a triple 
 type, the United States are not less favorably situated ; 
 the young giant that is growing up in the West, seems 
 destined to fulfil the prophecy the last shall be first, and to 
 bind together the North and the South in his vigourous 
 gripe. 
 
 In France we have two distinct types, that of the 
 North and that of the South ; but instead of employing 
 the principle of centralisation as a means of developing 
 the nature of both, and giving them a free and harmonious 
 action, we have endeavoured to confound them in a narrow 
 and sterile unity. We have especially thwarted the most 
 reasonable and legitimate wishes of the South, which 
 has been overborne and crushed by the North. It takes 
 its revenge, indeed, in furnishing us with most of our 
 statesmen, very much as Ireland has the privilege of giving 
 premiers to England ; but like Irish ministers in England, 
 our Southern statesmen, ungrateful sons of a neglected 
 mother, govern wholly in the interest of the North, as if 
 France contained towns only, and had no rural population, 
 as if we were chiefly a manufacturing, and but partially 
 an agricultural people, and, what is worse, as if we were 
 a school of philosophers, and not a nation longing for 
 religious faith and political love.
 
 LOWELL. 125 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 LOWELL, JUNE 12, 1834. 
 
 THE municipal elections which took place in New York 
 two months ago, and the legislative elections in Virginia, 
 which occupied the whole month of April, have revealed 
 to the Opposition its whole strength. Their success was 
 unexpected, particularly in New York ; I say success, al- 
 though the newly elected mayor belongs to the adminis- 
 tration party, because the Opposition has the majority in 
 both houses of the common council, the board of alder- 
 men, and the board of assistants, who govern in reality. 
 Since that time, the Opposition has continued to gain 
 ground. There are some able statesmen in the Senate, 
 who are also skilful parliamentary tacticians ; they knew 
 that by irritating the President they might force him to 
 commit some act of imprudence, and this motive was not 
 without its weight in the adoption by the Senate of reso- 
 lutions censuring his conduct in regard to the Bank. The 
 old General felt this censure very sensibly, and replied to 
 it by a protest, which his best friends consider a mistake, 
 and which the Senate refused to have entered on its jour- 
 nal. It is a matter of surprise that Mr Van Buren, whose 
 sagacity all admit, did not interpose his influence to pre- 
 vent the sending of this message. One of the fundamen- 
 tal maxims of American politics is, that the sword and 
 purse should not be united in the same hands ; that is, 
 that the President, to whom the constitution has entrusted 
 the military force of the Republic, should not also be the 
 keeper of the public money. This is here a universally
 
 126 LETTER XL 
 
 received, undisputed maxim ; and the President's protest 
 clashes with this doctrine. It became necessary, there- 
 fore, to follow up the protest by an explanatory message, 
 which the Opposition calls a recantation, and which in 
 truth is one. This retractation or explanation has not, how- 
 ever, destroyed the effect of the first message, and the 
 consequence has been a hesitation in the democratic ranks. 
 The Virginia elections, which were then going on, show 
 that they were influenced by it, and some other elections 
 of less importance have turned out unfavorably to the 
 Administration. 
 
 In Albany, the head-quarters of Mr Van Buren's friends, 
 the Opposition has carried the municipal elections. The 
 partisans of the Administration have, as if in sport, added 
 fault to fault. A committee of the House of Represen- 
 tatives, appointed to examine into the doings of the Bank, 
 of which the majority were Jackson men, as the adminis- 
 tration has the upper hand in that body, committed a 
 series of blunders : there was a paper war between the 
 committee and the directors of the Bank, in which the 
 former were completely unhorsed, and had no better re- 
 source than the brutal idea of ordering the President and 
 directors to be taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. 
 Such a proposition was revolting to every body ; the ma- 
 jority lately so compact, already exhibits symptoms of 
 disaffection, and several recent votes show that the Oppo- 
 sition is gaining ground. One might say that the pru- 
 dent, those, to use the words of the great master of diplo- 
 macy, whose watches go faster than those of their neigh- 
 bours, are getting ready to desert. Out of the legislative 
 houses, the Opposition is organising energetically for the 
 general elections, which are to take place next autumn : it 
 is making preparations in the spirit with which they are 
 made, when one feels sure of victory, and is determined 
 that it shall be a decisive one. In New York, for exam-
 
 LOWELL. 127 
 
 pie, the common council have removed all the Jackson men 
 from municipal offices ; all have made way for the oppo- 
 nents of the Administration. The mayor will have an 
 Anti-Jackson secretary, because that officer is chosen by 
 the common council. These removals are harsh measures, 
 but the friends of the Administration have no right to 
 complain, for they have set the example on a larger scale, 
 by removing hundreds of custom-house officers and post- 
 masters. Without pretending to justify these violent acts, 
 it should be considered that something more is involved 
 than merely the removing of an adversary to make way 
 for a friend. The Opposition wish that the inspectors of 
 streets should be Anti- Jackson men, because the scaven- 
 gers, who are in their employ, have a vote ; just as the 
 Administration insists upon all the postmasters being Jack- 
 son men, because in the country they have a certain influ- 
 ence. 
 
 It is less than a year since General Jackson visited the 
 great towns of the North. He was received with acclama- 
 tions such as neither America had ever before witnessed. 
 Washington never excited half the enthusiasm ; neither 
 Bolivar, Pizarro, nor the great Cortez was ever saluted 
 with such pompous epithets. It was an apotheosis. It is 
 not yet a year since, and already abuse has succeeded to 
 the most extravagant praise. A few days ago, I was 
 grieved to read some unbecoming pleasantries upon the old 
 General's scars. What will be held sacred, if honourable 
 wounds, all received in front, fighting for one's country, 
 are to become a subject of low jests ? The war of the 
 President on the Bank was certainly unjust and disastrous 
 to the country ; the rsieasures taken in his name against 
 that institution, were impolitic and unauthorised by law ; 
 the violent passion and imperious temper displayed by him 
 in the affair, make a strange figure in the seat, that had 
 been occupied by sages like Washington and his successors.
 
 128 LETTER XI. 
 
 All this is true ; but when we look back on fifty years of 
 public services, we are filled with grief and indignation to 
 think, that at the end of so long a career, outrage and in- 
 gratitude will be, perhaps, his only reward. Can he have 
 been raised so high, only that his fall should be greater ? 
 Is he destined to furnish another proof of the instability 
 of popular favour in every age and all countries ? But in- 
 stead of dwelling on these unpleasant reflections, I will 
 rather describe the scene now exhibited literally under my 
 windows. 
 
 The town of Lowell dates its origin eleven years ago, 
 and it now contains 15,000 inhabitants, inclusive of the 
 suburb of Belvedere. Twelve years ago it was a barren 
 waste, in which the silence was interrupted only by the 
 murmur, of the little river of Concord, and the noisy dash- 
 ings of the clear waters of the Merrimac, against the granite 
 blocks that suddenly obstruct their course. At present, 
 it is a pile of huge factories, each five, six, or seven stories 
 high, and capped with a little white belfry, which strongly 
 contrasts with the red masonry of the building, and is 
 distinctly projected on the dark hills in the horizon. By 
 the side of these larger structures rise numerous little 
 wooden houses, painted white, with green blinds, very 
 neat, very snug, very nicely carpeted, and with a few 
 small trees around them, or brick houses in the English 
 style, that is to say, simple, but tasteful without and com- 
 fortable within ; on one side, fancy-goods shops and milli- 
 ners' rooms without number, for the women* are the 
 majority in Lowell, and vast hotels in the American style, 
 very much like barracks (the only barracks in Lowell) ; 
 on another, canals, water-wheels, water-falls, bridges, banks, 
 schools, and libraries, for in Lowell reading is the only 
 
 * The female population of Lowell, between the ages of 15 and 25 years, 
 corresponds to a total population of from 50,000 to 60,000 souls.
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 recreation,* and there are no less than seven journals printed 
 here. All around are churches and meeting-houses of 
 every sect, Episcopalian, Baptist, Congregationalist, Meth- 
 odist, Universalist, Unitarian, &c., and there is also a 
 Roman Catholic chapel. Here are all the edifices of a 
 flourishing town in the Old World, except the prisons, 
 hospitals, and theatres ; everywhere is heard the noise of 
 hammers, of spindles, of bells calling the hands to their 
 work, or dismissing them from their tasks, of coaches and 
 six arriving or starting off, of the blowing of rocks to 
 make a mill-race or to level a road ; it is the peaceful hum 
 of an industrious population, whose movements are regu- 
 lated like clockwork ; a population not native to the town, 
 and one half of which at least will die elsewhere, after 
 having aided in founding three or four other towns ; for 
 the full-blooded American has this in common with the 
 Tartar, that he is encamped, not established, on the soil he 
 treads upon. 
 
 Massachusetts and the adjoining small States of New 
 England contain several manufacturing towns similar to 
 Lowell, but none of them on so large a scale. An Amer- 
 ican, well acquainted with the character of his country- 
 men, gave me the following account of the origin of these 
 towns, and of Lowell in particular. "In 1812," said he, 
 " the United States declared war against Great Britain to 
 defend the honour of their insulted flag. Boston and the 
 rest of New England opposed the war, and thus drew 
 upon themselves the reproaches of their brethren of the 
 Middle and Southern States. The fact is, they were quite 
 
 * The rigid spirit of Puritanism has been carried to its utmost in Lowell, 
 owing to the great number of young girls collected together in the factories. 
 In 1836, a man was fined by the municipal authorities for exercising the 
 trade of common fiddler ; he was treated as if he had outraged the public 
 morals, the magistrates fearing that the pleasures of the dance might tend 
 to corruption of manners. 
 
 17
 
 130 LETTER XI. 
 
 as sensitive as the rest of their countrymen to any insult 
 offered their flag by the mistress of the ocean ,* the patri- 
 otism of the New Englanders is above suspicion ; they 
 began the war of Independence, and they supported the 
 principal burden of that war. They were, likewise, re- 
 solved to have satisfaction for the outrages committed by 
 England, for it was they who had the greater number of 
 seamen impressed by the English ;* but they did not wish 
 to have recourse to the cannon's mouth. A commercial 
 people, they had much to lose and nothing to gain by a 
 maritime war ; a clear-sighted race, they saw that the 
 chance of war was on the side that could muster the 
 largest armies and the most numerous navy ; in a word, 
 war appeared to them to be a barbarous, old-fashioned 
 means, unworthy of their inventive wit. The Yankees 
 never do anything like other people, but they always have 
 some contrivance in store, that nobody else would have 
 ever thought of. After a careful examination, the Yankee 
 said to himself, the best mode of warfare against the Eng- 
 lish will be to attack the sources of their wealth ; now 
 what is the principal source of the wealth of Great 
 Britain? Its manufactures. Among its manufactures 
 which are the most productive ? Why the cotton. Well 
 then, we will set up spinning works and manufactories of 
 cottons ; this will be our war on Great Britain. Ten or 
 twelve years were passed in making experiments, in pre- 
 liminary preparations and attempts to form a class of ope- 
 ratives, and to make machinery. In 1823, the Merrimack 
 corporation began operations at Lowell, where the River 
 Merrimack has a fall of 32 feet, creating a vast motive 
 power, and has been followed by the Hamilton, Appleton, 
 
 " New England comprises but one sixth part of the whole population of 
 the Union, but she owns one half of the shipping of the country, or 700,000 
 tons out of a little more than fourteen hundred thousand.
 
 LOWELL. 131 
 
 Lowell, Suffolk, Tremont, Lawrence, and other companies 
 in succession." 
 
 Such is Lowell. Its name is derived from that of a 
 Boston merchant, who was one of the first promoters of 
 the cotton-manufacture in the United States. It is not 
 like one of our European towns that was built by some 
 demi-god, a son of Jupiter, or by some hero of the Trojan 
 war, or by the genius of an Alexander or a Caesar, or by 
 some saint, attracting crowds by his miracles, or by the 
 whim of some great sovereign, like Louis XIV. or Frede- 
 ric, or by an edict of Peter the Great. It was neither a 
 pious foundation, nor an asylum for fugitives, nor a mili- 
 tary post ; but it is one of the speculations of the mer- 
 chants of Boston. The same spirit of enterprise, which a 
 year ago suggested the idea of sending a cargo of ice from 
 Boston to Calcutta round Cape Horn, to cool the drink of 
 Lord William Bentinck and the nabobs of the India com- 
 pany, has led them to build up a town here, wholly at 
 their own expense, with all the buildings required by the 
 wants of a civilised community, in order to be able to 
 manufacture white cottons and calicoes ; and they have 
 succeeded, as they always succeed in their speculations. 
 The, semi-annual dividends of the manufacturing compa- 
 nies in Lowell, are generally from 5 to 6 per cent. 
 
 The cotton manufacture in America, which dates only 
 from the last war with England, is rapidly extending, 
 although the modifications of the tariff, required by the 
 attitude of South Carolina last year, have somewhat tended 
 to check the manufacturing spirit. Boston seems destined, 
 like Liverpool, to have its Lancashire behind it. As 
 water-courses abound in New England, according to the 
 nature of all primary regions, steam-engines may be dis- 
 pensed with for a long time to ' come. This part of the 
 country is very unproductive, and it required all the perse- 
 verance and obstinacy, even, of the Puritans to introduce
 
 132 LETTER XI. 
 
 into it the comforts of life. It is rugged, rocky, moun- 
 tainous, and bleak, consisting in fact of the first ridges of 
 the Alleghanies, which extend hence to the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, continually receding from the Atlantic as they stretch 
 southwards. The inhabitants have an extraordinary me- 
 chanical genius, they are patient, attentive, arid inventive, 
 and they must succeed in manufactures ; or rather they 
 have already succeeded, and Lowell is a miniature Man- 
 chester. About 30,000 bales of cotton, or one sixth of 
 the whole domestic consumption (see Note 14), are con- 
 sumed in Lowell, besides which there are several manu- 
 factories of broadcloths, cassimeres, and carpets. To 
 strengthen the resemblance between their city and Liver- 
 pool, the Boston merchants determined to construct a rail- 
 road from Boston to Lowell, the length of which is 26 
 miles ; there was already a canal, as there is one between 
 Liverpool and Manchester, but this has been found insuffi- 
 cient, as it was at Liverpool and Manchester. They 
 would not permit this road to be constructed in the usual 
 hasty and provisional manner of the American works, but 
 they determined to have something Roman, and their 
 engineers have given it to them, and have certainly made 
 the most solid railroad in the world. They have only 
 left out the beautiful masonry, the arches of hewn stone, 
 the columns, and all the monumental architecture, which 
 makes the Liverpool and Manchester railroad one of the 
 wonders of modern times ; these magnificent ornaments 
 yield no dividends. Yet the Boston and Lowell railroad 
 in its Roman or Cyclopean simplicity, will cost 56,000 
 dollars a mile. 
 
 In travelling through the neighbourhood of Manchester, 
 one is struck with wonder at the sight of the great spin- 
 ning works ; in looking at those huge white buildings by 
 moon-light, projecting themselves on the dark back ground 
 above the plain, those hundreds of windows from which
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 133 
 
 stream the brilliant rays of gas-lights, those lofty chimneys, 
 higher than the highest obelisks, one -is tempted to think 
 them palaces, abodes of pleasure and joy. Alas ! the 
 delusive splendours ! alas ! the whited sepulchres ! All 
 this fairy illusion vanishes, when one crosses their door- 
 sill, sees the haggard looks and ragged clothes of the 
 crowd that fills these vast structures, beholds those poor 
 children whom Parliament vainly strives to protect against 
 their fathers, who are incessantly begetting new competi- 
 tors, and against the lash of their overseers. On arriving 
 at Lowell, the first impression of pleasure caused by the 
 sight of the town, new and fresh like an opera scene, 
 fades away before the melancholy reflection, will this 
 become like Lancashire ? Does this brilliant glare hide 
 the misery and suffering of operatives, and those degra- 
 ding vices, engendered by poverty in the manufacturing 
 towns, drunkenness and prostitution, popular sedition 
 hanging over the heads of the rich by a frail thread, 
 which an ordinary accident, and slight imprudence, or 
 a breath of the bad passions, would snap asunder ? This 
 question I hasten to answer. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 
 
 BOSTON, JUNE 22, 1834. 
 
 WAR, the last argument of kings and people, war, in 
 which they put forth their strength with pride, is not, 
 however, the greatest exhibition of human power. A
 
 134 LETTER XII. 
 
 field of battle may excite terror or a feverish enthusiasm, 
 pity or horror ; but human strength applied to create is more 
 imposing, than human strength employed in slaughter and 
 destruction. The pyramids or the colossal temples of 
 Thebes, the Colyseum or Saint Peter's of Rome, reveal a 
 higher grandeur than a field of battle covered with deso- 
 lation and death, were it strown with three hundred thou- 
 sand bodies, as in those two great fights in which our 
 fathers, under Meroveus and Charles Martel, presented a 
 barrier to the career of the barbarians, and saved the 
 Western world from the encroachments of the East. The 
 power of man, like that of God, is not less visible in 
 small things than in great. There is nothing in the physi- 
 cal order of things of which our race has a better right to 
 boast, than of the mechanical inventions, by means of 
 which man holds in check the irregular vigour, or brings 
 forth the hidden energies, of nature. By the aid of me- 
 chanical contrivances, this poor weak creature, reaching 
 out his hands over the immensity of nature, takes posses- 
 sion of the rivers, of the winds of heaven, of the tides of 
 the ocean. By them, he drags forth from the secret bow- 
 els of the earth their hidden stores of fuel and of metals, 
 and masters the subterranean waters, which there dispute 
 his dominion. By them, he turns each drop of water into 
 a reservoir of steam,* that is, into a magazine of power, 
 and thus he changes the globe, in comparison with which 
 he seems an atom, into a labourious, untiring, submissive 
 slave, performing the heaviest tasks under the eye of its 
 master. Is there any thing which gives a higher idea of 
 the power of man, than the steam-engine under the form 
 in which it is applied to produce motion on railroads ? It 
 is more than a machine, it is almost a living being ; it 
 
 * In passing into steam, water expands to one thousand seven hundred 
 times its volume.
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 135 
 
 moves, it runs like a courser at the top of his speed ; 
 more than this, it breathes ; the steam which issues at 
 regular periods from the pipes, and is condensed into a 
 white cloud, resembles the quick breathing of a race- 
 horse. A steam-engine has a complete respiratory appa- 
 ratus, which acts like our own by expansion and com- 
 pression ; it wants only a system of circulation to live. 
 
 One evening, while in Virginia, I was looking at a dis- 
 tant locomotive engine, approaching along the Petersburg 
 and Roanoke railroad, one of the fine works of which Mr 
 Robinson, the engineer, yet a young man, has executed 
 so many in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The engine came 
 on at its usual rate of speed, through a narrow clearing cut 
 for the road in one of the primitive forests, formerly the 
 domain of the great king Powhatan and his copper- 
 coloured warriors.* The chimney threw out thousands 
 of sparks from its wide, funnel-shaped top ; although yet 
 at a distance, the noise of the quick breathing of the 
 pipes was distinctly heard. In the darkness, in so wild a 
 place, in the bosom of a vast wilderness and the midst of 
 a profound silence, it was necessary either to be acquainted 
 with mechanics, or to be imbued with the incredulity of 
 the age, not to believe this flying, panting, flaming ma- 
 chine, a winged dragon vomiting forth fire. A short time 
 since some Bramins, the fathers of ancient science, seeing 
 a steam-boat stem the current of the sacred Ganges, really 
 believed that it was some strange animal, recently discov- 
 ered by the English in some distant region. 
 
 In our modern societies the improvements of machinery 
 have given us manufactures, which promise to be a source 
 of inexhaustible prosperity and well-being to mankind. 
 
 * This railroad was constructed for GO miles through a vast forest of oak 
 and pine, the few houses now found along the line having been erected 
 since the execution of the work.
 
 136 LETTER XII. 
 
 The English manufactories alone yield about eight hun- 
 dred million yards of cotton stuffs annually, or about one 
 yard for each inhabitant of the globe. If it were required 
 to produce this amount of cloth without machinery, by 
 the fingers alone, it is probable that each of us would 
 hardly be able to card, spin, and weave his yard a year, so 
 that the whole time of the whole human race would be 
 occupied by a task, which, by the aid of machinery, is 
 accomplished by five hundred thousand arms in Great 
 Britain. From this fact we may conclude, that when the 
 manufacturing system shall be well regulated and com- 
 pletely organised, a moderate amount of labour by a small 
 part of the human race, will be sufficient to produce all 
 the physical comforts for the whole. There can be no 
 doubt, that it will be so, some day or another ; but this 
 beautiful order of things is yet remote. The manufactu- 
 ring system is a novelty, it is expanding and maturing it- 
 self, (see Note 15), and as it ripens, it certainly will im- 
 prove ; the staunchest pessimists cannot deny this, yet we 
 should expose ourselves to the most cruel disappointments, 
 if we imagined that the progress of improvement can be 
 otherwise than slow, step by step. There are seven- 
 leagued boots in fairy-tales, but none in history. Mean- 
 while the manufacturing system temporarily involves the 
 most disastrous consequences, which it would be useless 
 to enumerate here. Who has not sounded its depths with 
 terror ? Who has not wept over it ? It is the canker of 
 England, a canker so inveterate, that one is sometimes 
 tempted to think, that all the ability displayed of late 
 years by the British statesmen in attempts at domestic re- 
 form, will prove a dead loss. 
 
 The introduction of the manufacturing system into a 
 new country, under the empire of very different circum- 
 stances, is an event worthy of the closest attention. No 
 sooner was I recovered from the sort of giddiness with
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 137 
 
 which I was seized at the sight of this extemporaneous 
 town, hardly had I taken time to touch it, to make sure 
 that it was not a pasteboard town, like those which Potem- 
 kin erected for Catherine along the road to Byzantium, 
 when I set myself to inquire, how far the creation of man- 
 ufactures in this country, had given rise to the same dan- 
 gers in regard to the welfare and morals of the working 
 class, and in regard to the security of the rich and of 
 public order, as in Europe ; and through the polite atten- 
 tion of the agents of the two principal companies (the 
 Merrimack and the Lawrence), I was able to satisfy my 
 curiosity. The cotton manufacture alone employs six 
 thousand persons in Lowell ; of this number nearly five 
 thousand are young women from 17 to 24 years of age, 
 the daughters of farmers from the different New England 
 States, and particularly from Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
 shire, and Vermont ; they are here remote from their fam- 
 ilies, and under their own control. On seeing them pass 
 through the streets in the morning and evening and at 
 their meal-hours, neatly dressed ; on finding their scarfs, 
 and shawls, and green silk hoods which they wear as a 
 shelter from the sun and dust (for Lowell is not yet paved), 
 hanging up in the factories amidst the flowers and shrubs, 
 which they cultivate, I said to myself, this, then, is not 
 like Manchester ; and when I was informed of the rate 
 of their wages, I understood that it was not at all like 
 Manchester. The following are the average weekly wages 
 paid by the Merrimack corporation last May. 
 
 For picking and carding, 
 
 For spinning, . . . 
 For weaving, .... 
 18
 
 138 LETTER XII. 
 
 ( 3.45 Dols. 
 For warping and sizing, . . / 
 
 In the cloth-room (measuring and folding), 3. 12 
 These numbers are averages ; the wages of the more 
 skilful hands amounting to five, and sometimes nearly six 
 dollars. Note that last March, in consequence of the 
 crisis occasioned by the President's quarrel with the Bank, 
 there was a general reduction of from 30 to 40 cents a week. 
 You know how much smaller are the wages of women 
 than of men ;* there are few women in Europe, out of a 
 few great cities, who can earn more than 20 cents a day 
 or one dollar a week. It must also be remembered, that, 
 in the United States the necessaries of life are not only 
 much cheaper than in England, but even than in France, 
 so that a great many of these girls can save a dollar or a 
 dollar and a half a week. After spending four years in 
 the factories, they may have a little fortune of 250 or 300 
 dollars, when they often quit work and marry.f 
 
 In France, it would be difficult to conceive of a state of 
 things, in which young girls, generally pretty, should be 
 separated from their families, and thrown together, at a 
 distance of 50 or 100 miles from home, in a town in which 
 their parents could have no person to advise and watch 
 over them. It is a fact, however, with the exception of a 
 very small number of cases, which only prove the rule, 
 that this state of things has yet had no bad effects in 
 Lowell. The manners of the English race are totally 
 different from those of us French ; all their habits and all 
 their notions wholly unlike ours. The Protestant educa- 
 tion, much more than our Catholic discipline, draws round 
 
 * The wages of a mere labourer in the factories at Lowell are from 5 to 6 
 dollars a week ; of a man who has a trade, as a smith, dyer, 8 to 10 dollars, 
 of the engravers of patterns on the printing cylinders, 17 or 18 dollars. 
 
 t Out of on* thousand females in the Lawrence mills, only eleven are 
 married women, and nineteen widow*.
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 139 
 
 each individual a line over which it is difficult to step. 
 The consequence is more coldness in the domestic rela- 
 tions, a more or less complete absence of a full and free 
 expression of the stronger feelings of the soul, but, in turn, 
 every one is obliged and accustomed to show more respect 
 for the feelings of others. What amongst us would pass 
 for a youthful imprudence or a pretty trick, is severely 
 frowned upon by the English and Americans, and partic- 
 ularly by the Americans of New England, who are, as 
 has been said, double-distilled English. Nobody in this 
 country, then, is surprised to see the daughters of rural 
 proprietors, after having received a tolerable education, quit 
 their native village and their parents, take up their residence 
 50 or 100 miles off, in a town where they have no ac- 
 quaintance, and pass two or three years in this state of 
 isolation and independence ; they are under the safeguard 
 of the public faith. All this presupposes an extreme re- 
 serve of manners, a vigilant, inexorable, and rigid public 
 opinion, and it must be acknowledged, that, under this 
 rigorous system, there is a sombre hue, an air of listless- 
 ness, thrown over society ; but, when one reflects on the 
 dangers to which the opposite system exposes the daugh- 
 ters of the poor, who have no guardian to warn and pro- 
 tect them, when one counts its victims, however slight 
 may be his sympathies with the people, it is difficult to 
 deny, that the Anglo-American prudery, all things consid- 
 ered, is fully worth our ease and freedom of manners, 
 whatever may be their attractions.* 
 
 * Mr H. C. Carey, in his Essay on Wages (p. 89), quotes the following 
 letter from the director of one of the factories in Lowell. " There have 
 been in our establishment only three cases of illicit connexions, and in all 
 three instances the parties were married immediately, several months be- 
 fore the birth of the child, so that in fact we have had no case of actual 
 bastardy." Mr Carey adds, that he was informed that there had been no 
 such case at Dover, where there is a very large manufactory. Although I 
 do not believe that such an exemplary degree of purity prevails in all the
 
 140 LETTER XII. 
 
 The manufacturing companies exercise the most care- 
 ful supervision over these girls. I have already said, that, 
 twelve years ago, Lowell did not exist ; when, therefore, 
 the manufactories were set up, it also became necessary to 
 provide lodgings for the operatives, and each company has 
 built for this purpose a number of houses within its own 
 limits, to be used exclusively as boarding-houses for them. 
 Here they are under the care of the mistress of the house, 
 who is paid by the company at the rate of one dollar and 
 a quarter a week for each boarder, that sum being stopped 
 out of the weekly wages of the girls. These house- 
 keepers, who are generally widows, are each responsible 
 for the conduct of her boarders, and they are themselves 
 subject to the control and supervision of the company, in 
 the management of their little communities. Each com- 
 pany has its rules and regulations, which are not merely 
 paper-laws, but which are carried into execution with all 
 that spirit of vigilant perseverance that characterises the 
 Yankee. I will give you a short summary of one of 
 these codes, for they seem to me to throw great light on 
 some of the most striking peculiarities of this country. I 
 will take those of the Lawrence company, which is the 
 most recently formed ; they are a revised and corrected 
 edition of the rules and regulations, of the other companies. 
 They bear date May 21, 1833. Article first of the gene- 
 ral rules is as follows : " All persons employed by the 
 Company must devote themselves assiduously to their 
 duty during working-hours. They must be capable of 
 doing the work which they undertake, or use all their 
 efforts to this effect. They must on all occasions, both 
 in their words and in their actions, show that they are 
 
 manufacturing districts, yet I am convinced that the morals of the manu- 
 facturing operatives are in harmony with those of the rest of the popula- 
 tion.
 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OP LOWELL. 141 
 
 penetrated by a laudable love of temperance and vir- 
 tue, and animated by a sense of their moral and social 
 obligations. The Agent of the Company shall endeavour 
 to set to all a good example in this respect. Every indi- 
 vidual who shall be notoriously dissolute, idle, dishonest, 
 or intemperate, who shall be in the practice of absenting 
 himself from divine service, or shall violate the Sabbath, 
 or shall be addicted to gaming, shall be dismissed from 
 the service of the Company. Art. 2. " All ardent spirits 
 are banished from the Company's grounds, except when 
 prescribed by a physician. All games of hazard and cards 
 are prohibited within their limits and in the boarding- 
 houses. The articles following from 3 to 13, determine 
 the duties of the agent, assistant agent, foremen, watch 
 and firemen. Article thirteenth directs, that every female 
 employed by the Company shall live in one of the Com- 
 pany's boarding-houses, attend regularly at divine service, 
 and rigidly observe the rules of the Sabbath. Article 
 fourteenth and last, contains an appeal to the operatives, on 
 the necessity of subordination, and on the compatibility of 
 obedience with civil and religious liberty. There is, be- 
 sides, a special rule relative to boarding-houses ; it recounts, 
 that the Company has built those houses and lets them at 
 a low price, wholly for the good of the hands,* and that 
 the Company, therefore, imposes certain duties on the 
 persons who hire them. It makes them responsible for 
 the neatness and comfortable condition of the houses, the 
 punctuality and good quality of the meals, good order and 
 harmony among the boarders ; it requires that the keepers 
 of the houses shall receive no persons as boarders, who are 
 not employed in the Company's works, and it obliges them 
 
 * The company gets only 4 percent, on the capital invested in the board- 
 ing-houses, while the average rate of dividends on the manufacturing stock 
 is from 5 to 6 per cent, semi-annually.
 
 142 LETTER XII. 
 
 to give an account of the behaviour of the girls. It also 
 prescribes that the doors shall be shut at ten, and repeats 
 the injunction of attendance at divine worship. 
 
 These regulations, which amongst us would excite a 
 thousand objections and would be in fact impracticable, 
 are here regarded as the most simple and natural thing in 
 the world ; they are enforced without opposition or diffi- 
 culty. Thus in regard to Sunday, for instance, which 
 with us is a holiday, a day of amusement and gaiety, it is 
 here a day of retirement, meditation, silence, and prayer.* 
 This is one of the features in which the French type most 
 strongly contrasts with the Anglo-American. In a moral 
 and religious point of view, there prevail among us a 
 laxity and a toleration, which form a counterpart to the 
 American let-alone principle in political matters ; whilst 
 the principle of political authority, which has always been 
 established in great vigour among us, under all forms of 
 government, monarchy, empire, or republic, corresponds to 
 the austere reserve of American manners, to their rigid 
 habits of life, and to the religious severity which exists 
 here by the side of the great multiplicity of sects. So 
 true is it, that both order and liberty are essential to hu- 
 man nature, and that it is impossible to establish a society 
 on one of these principles alone ! If you abandon a por- 
 tion of the social institutions exclusively to the spirit of 
 liberty, be assured that the principle of order will take no 
 less exclusive possession of some other portion. Yield up 
 to liberty the whole field of politics, and you are com- 
 
 * In the United States, the theatres are generally closed on Sunday, out of 
 respect for the rules of the Sabbath ; the only exception to this custom is 
 among the French population of Louisiana. In New England, religious 
 scruples on this point are carried farther than elsewhere; thus in Boston, a 
 by-law of the city prescribes the shutting up of the theatres on Saturday 
 evening, because, according to some precisians, the Sabbath begins at sunset 
 ii that day. 

 
 THE FACTORY GIRLS OF LOWELL. 143 
 
 pelled to give religion and manners wholly up to order. 
 Leave manners and religion to liberty, and you rind your- 
 self obliged to strengthen the principle of order in politics, 
 under pain of suffering society itself to fall into ruins. 
 Such are the general laws of equilibrium which govern 
 the nations and the universe of worlds. 
 
 Up to this time, then, the rules of the companies have 
 been observed. Lowell, with its steeple-crowned factories, 
 resembles a Spanish town with its convents ; but with 
 this difference, that in Lowell, you meet no rags nor 
 Madonnas, and that the nuns of Lowell, instead of work- 
 ing sacred hearts, spin and weave cotton. Lowell is not 
 amusing, but it is neat, decent, peaceable, and sage. Will 
 it always be so ? Will it be so long ? It would be rash 
 to affirm it ; hitherto the life of manufacturing operatives 
 has proved little favorable to the preservation of severe 
 morals. So it has been in France, as well as in England ; 
 in Germany and Switzerland, as well as in France. But 
 as 'there is a close connexion between morality and com- 
 petence, it may be considered very probable, that while 
 the wages shall continue to be high at Lowell, the influ- 
 ences of a good education, a sense of duty, and the fear of 
 public opinion, will be sufficient to maintain good morals. 
 Will wages, then, continue to be what they are ? There 
 are some causes which must tend to reduce them ; the 
 rates of the duties which protect American industry are 
 progressively decreasing ; on the 1st of July, 1842, they 
 will be reduced to a maximum of 20 per cent. But, on 
 the other hand, the processes become more perfect, the 
 labourers grow more skilful, the capitalists are realising 
 their outlays, and consequently will no longer expect to 
 divide 10 or 12 per cent. A certain diminution of wages 
 is very possible, even after that of last March, because 
 labour is paid in the Lowell factories, better than it is in 
 the surrounding country ; but there must be limits to this
 
 144 LETTER XII. 
 
 diminution. In Europe, work is often wanting for the 
 hands ; here, on the other side, hands are wanting for the 
 work. While the Americans have the vast domain in the 
 West, a common fund, from which, by industry, each 
 may draw for himself and by himself, an ample heritage, 
 an extreme fall of wages is not to be apprehended. 
 
 In America as in Europe, competition among the head- 
 workmen tends to reduce their wages ; but the tendency 
 is not increased in America, as in Europe, by the compe- 
 tition among the labourers, that is by an excess of hands 
 wanting employ, for the West stands open as a refuge to 
 all who are unemployed. In Europe, a coalition of work- 
 men can only signify one of these two things ; raise our 
 wages or we shall die of hunger with our wives and chil- 
 dren, which is an absurdity ; or raise our wages, if you do 
 not, we shall take up arms, which is a civil war ; in Eu- 
 rope, there is no other possible construction to be put upon 
 it. But in America, on the contrary, such a coalition 
 means, raise our wages, or we go to the West. Every 
 coalition which does not amount to this in the minds of 
 the associates, is merely the whim of the moment, an 
 affair of little importance. This is the reason why coali- 
 tions, which in Europe are often able to shakfe the firmest 
 fabric, present no real danger to the public peace in this 
 country, where authority is disarmed. This is the reason 
 why European countries, burdened with an excess of popu- 
 lation, need for their safety and welfare a West, into which 
 each may overflow after its own manner. This also is 
 the reason why France is right in keeping Algiers.
 
 THE BANK. SLAVERY. 145 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE BANK. SLAVERY. 
 
 ELMINGTON, (VA.) AUG. 24, 1834. 
 
 THE elections of members of the House of Represen- 
 tatives will take place in New York, Pennsylvania, and 
 Ohio, the principal States in the Union, next October and 
 November. Although the members then returned will 
 not take their seats until the session which begins in 
 December, 1835, yet great importance is attached to the 
 results of these elections, even in respect to the approach- 
 ing session of Congress. On both sides preparations are 
 making with the greatest activity ; both parties have 
 chosen their text. As the harangues against an aristocracy 
 of money have aroused the prejudices of the labouring 
 classes, who form the majority of electors, against the 
 Bank, the watchword of the Opposition is no longer osten- 
 sibly the Bank. But it says to the electors, referring to 
 the late acts of the President directed against the Bank, 
 and the doctrines which on this occasion he has put forth 
 in his messages ; " The executive power is guilty of gross 
 usurpation ; .hasten to the rescue of the constitution from 
 its monstrous encroachments. It is no longer a question 
 about the bank ; but our liberties, bought by the blood of 
 our fathers, are at stake, and an audacious soldier, sur- 
 rounded by a train of servile place-men, has dared to trifle 
 with our dearest rights." This is certainly the best 
 ground for the Opposition to take ; for General Jackson, 
 in the affair of the Bank, as in most other circumstances 
 of his life, has cared little for forms. He has gone straight 
 forward to his object, without stopping to consider where 
 he was placing his foot. 
 19
 
 146 LETTER XIII. 
 
 The Administration party, which well knows how un- 
 popular the Bank is with the multitude, since this unpopu- 
 larity is chiefly its own work, talks Bank and nothing but 
 Bank. " The Opposition," they say, " is mocking you, 
 when it calls upon you to save the Constitution and the 
 laws. What do they care for the Constitution and the 
 laws ? It is the Bank that they wish to save. Down 
 with the Bank ! General Jackson, the Hero of two Wars, 
 who pushed back the English bayonets from the Union at 
 the peril of his life, wishes to free the soil of the country 
 from this prop of tyranny and corruption. The Bank is 
 nothing but English influence which seeks to enslave you. 
 It is now to be seen, whether you will be freemen or wor- 
 shippers of the Golden Calf. In spite of the hypocritical 
 protestations of the parasites of the Bank, remember, at 
 the polls, that the question, the only question, the whole 
 question, is Bank or no Bank." At bottom, what the 
 Administration party says, is true ; the Opposision do not 
 give up the cause of the Bank. The question, which is 
 at issue, and which is to be settled by the elections, is, in 
 fact, the question of the Bank. 
 
 But whose fault is it, if the Opposition has a rightful 
 cause to call the citizens to the defence of the Constitu- 
 tion ? Besides, the leaders of the Democratic party felt 
 that their policy, which consisted in setting up the local 
 banks in opposition to to the National Bank, would neces- 
 sarily fail, and that the financial and commercial interests 
 of the country, comprising the local banks themselves, 
 must, in the long run, rally round the Bank of the United 
 States. The abuse which they had heaped upon the latter, 
 would, therefore, fall directly upon the local banks. It 
 was impossible that the democratic multitude, which had 
 much more just grounds of complaint against the local 
 banks, than against the Bank of the United States, by 
 which nobody had ever lost a dollar, should not perceive
 
 THE BANK. SLAVERY. 147 
 
 this. Accordingly, after having hesitated a long time, the 
 heads of the party seem ready to take the bold stand of 
 openly denouncing all banks. Bank-bills, they say, are 
 nothing but wretched rag-money ; the eulogies of the 
 metals, gold and silver, are now become the order of the 
 day. Gold is called Jackson money ; the United States 
 mint has been actively employed in striking gold coins, 
 half-eagles and quarter-cages. The principal journals of 
 the Jackson party pay the daily wages of their journeymen 
 printers in gold ; the warm friends of the Administration 
 affect to carry gold pieces in their pockets, and as paper 
 only is generally used here in business transactions, even 
 of the most trifling amount, you may be certain that a 
 man who is seen with gold in his hands, is a Jacksonman. 
 The President lately made a visit to his seat in Tennessee, 
 and paid his expenses all along the road in gold, and the 
 Globe, his official organ, took care to inform the public of 
 it. At a dinner, given in honour of him, by the citizens 
 of Nashville, he proposed this toast : " Gold and silver, 
 the only currency recognised by the constitution /" 
 
 This apotheosis of gold and silver, abstractly consid- 
 ered, is all very well ; hitherto the metals have made too 
 small a proportion of the currency of the United States ; 
 gold, particularly, was never met with. At its last session 
 Congress removed one of the obstacles to gold remaining 
 in the country and taking the place of small bank notes, 
 by raising its legal value. How far this act will effect its 
 object of keeping a certain quantity of gold in the country, 
 I know not ; but I am persuaded, that the only prompt 
 and effectual means of sweeping away the small bills, will 
 be a National Bank. The, prudent and experienced men 
 of the party will certainly resist a formal declaration of 
 war against all banks ; but it is hardly to be avoided, that 
 in the democratic party, the most rash and the most violent 
 should give the law to the men of moderation and expe-
 
 148 LETTER XIII. 
 
 rience. In this event, Mr Van Buren will have need of all 
 his address to preserve discipline in the ranks. He is too 
 well acquainted with the commercial situation of the 
 United States, to allow himself to dwell one moment -on 
 such a project as the destruction of the banks. His creed 
 is the overthrow of the Bank of the United States, not 
 because it is a bank, but because, in his view, its existence 
 is contrary to the constitution. 
 
 The tactics of the Opposition have already given it suc- 
 cess in some partial and unimportant elections, but even if 
 they should have the majority in the next Congress, it 
 would be but an incomplete victory, for the Bank would 
 not be preserved. Many persons who have joined the 
 Opposition because its watchword was the Constitution 
 and the laws, would have kept aloof, had they seen the 
 name of the Bank joined with them, so rooted is the jeal- 
 ousy of this useful institution. Admitting, then, that the 
 Opposition triumphs in the coming elections, it will be 
 necessary to set some new springs in motion in order to 
 save the Bank. It is easy to refer at present to one on 
 which the friends of the Bank will not fail to rely. 
 
 The Union, homogeneous as it is in regard to language 
 and general character, is subdivided, as I have already 
 said, into three groups, daily becoming more and more 
 strongly marked. North of the Potomac, the States are 
 poor in soilf but enriched by commerce* and manufactures ; 
 there are the great commercial towns, Boston, New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and the secondary ports of 
 Salem, Portland, New Bedford, Nantucket, and Provi- 
 dence ; there, also, are almost all the manufactures of the 
 Union. These States do not admit slavery, with the ex- 
 
 * In 1833, out of 108 millions the ports of the north imported 9(i million 
 
 dollars. Deducting the imports of New Orleans, those of all the Southern 
 
 States were only of the value of 2,700,000 dollars. The exports of the 
 South are much greater than its imports. 

 
 THE BANK. SLAVERY. 149 
 
 ception of Maryland, where the slaves are on the decrease, 
 and the Lilliputian State of Delaware, where slavery has, 
 in fact, almost disappeared. South of the Potomac, be- 
 tween the Atlantic and the Mississippi, are the slave-hpld- 
 ing States, wholly agricultural, and the only part of the 
 country in which cultivation is conducted on a great scale, 
 producing cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, without mechan- 
 ical industry, and having but little commerce, except the 
 coasting trade, the foreign trade being in the hands of the 
 North. In the West, reaching from the great lakes south- 
 wards, and lying on the Ohio and the Mississippi, is a 
 tract of the highest fertility, in which, since the peace of 
 1783, have grown up the new States of Ohio, Indiana, 
 and Illinois, besides Michigan, which is now on the point 
 of becoming a State. These are also agricultural States, 
 producing corn and cattle of all kinds, yielding whiskey 
 and salted provisions, cultivated by free hands, and in 
 which property is so far subdivided, that each family has 
 its own farm. 
 
 Of these three groups, the North is most interested in 
 the existence of a Central Bank ; it is there, also, that the 
 financial machinery of the Union is most thoroughly un- 
 derstood, and it is most fully perceived, that such a Bank 
 is one of its most indispensable wheels. But the North 
 alone, even with the support of some commercial towns in 
 the South and West, such as New Orleans and Cincinnati, 
 does not make up a majority, and in the North itself, in 
 the rural districts back of New York and Philadelphia, a 
 jealousy of the commerce of the cities prevails, which is 
 worse than injustice, for it is ingratitude, and which dis- 
 plays itself by a blind hostility to the Bank. In a word, 
 although the question of a National Bank is considered 
 almost a question of existence by the great commercial 
 capitals of the North, without whose enterprise that region 
 would be still little better than a wilderness, yet the North
 
 150 LETTER XIII. 
 
 is far from being unanimous in favour of such an institu- 
 tion, and were it so, would not alone be able to save it. 
 The North, then, must seek allies in the South or the 
 West ; there are some symptoms of the increase of the 
 Opposition in the West, but this is only because the ques- 
 tion of the Bank has been temporarily left out of view. 
 The West does not favour the Bank nor the banks. The 
 hatred of these eminently democratic States to the banking 
 system is formally proclaimed in the constitutions of Indi- 
 ana and Illinois, by which banks are expressly prohibited, 
 unless the State think proper to establish one itself, with 
 its own funds ; a measure which each has already made 
 preparations to adopt. It is to the South, then, that the 
 North must look for help. 
 
 The inhabitants of the South and the North are very 
 different from each .other in many points (See Letter X.), 
 and in a certain degree there are the same analogies and 
 the same contrasts between the North and the South, as 
 between England and France.* The South, like, France, 
 is most distinguished for the brilliant qualities ; the North, 
 like England, for the solid ; great ideas have their origin 
 rather in the South ; good execution belongs rather to the 
 North. The North is gifted with the English perseve- 
 rance, at once the pledge and the condition of success ; 
 the South, like us, is easily moved, but easily discouraged ; 
 all ardour at the outset, but disconcerted by a check from 
 any unforeseen obstacle. It was a matter of general sur- 
 prise through the Union last year, that the South Caroli- 
 neans had completed, and completed in a good style of ex- 
 ecution, a railroad from Charleston to Augusta : the dis- 
 
 * I asked a fellow countryman, established at Richmond, whose patriot- 
 ism had not been cooled by a long absence from France, why he preferred 
 Richmond to the northern cities, which, in some respects, are more favour- 
 able to business ; " Because," he replied, " the Virginians are the French of 
 America." 

 
 THE BANK. SLAVER Y. 151 
 
 tance is equal to that from Havre to Paris. From the 
 intermixture of northern with southern men in Congress, 
 we find in that body a spirit of calculation and a practical 
 good sense combined with a lively imagination and large 
 views ; the well balanced combination of these opposite 
 qualities explains the union of boldness and wisdom which 
 generally characterises the acts of that body. Until re- 
 cently, when the West has suddenly loomed up, and taken 
 its stand by the side of these two rivals, the domestic 
 politics of the United States have consisted in maintaining 
 the balance between the North and the South,* 
 
 There are important differences in the political views 
 of the North and the South. The North has more respect 
 for the Federal bond, and is disposed to tighten rather than 
 to relax it. The South has the opposite tendency. The 
 South is opposed to the tariff, to the system of internal 
 improvements by the Federal government, to whatever 
 tends to enlarge the influence of the Federal authority. 
 " The lighter is the Federal yoke," says the South, " the 
 more easily it will be borne, the less cause there will be to 
 fear, that any of the members of the confederation will 
 be tempted to shake it off." " By relaxing too much the 
 
 * It -has always been endeavoured to balance the number of non-slave- 
 holding States, as much as possible, by an equal number of slave States ; 
 by this means, the Senate would be exactly divided between the two inter- 
 ests. In 1789, six of the thirteen States admitted slavery; in 1792, there 
 were 16 States, equally divided between the two systems ; in 1802, out of 
 17 States, nine did not admit slavery, but in 1812, the admission of Louisi- 
 ana restored the balance. From 1816 to 1819, four States were admitted, 
 Alabama and Mississippi, slave-holding, Indiana and Illinois, non-slave- 
 holding. In 1820, Maine, without slaves, and in 1821 Missouri with slaves, 
 followed. In 1836 Michigan at the north, and Arkansas at the south, were 
 received into the Union, and next will come the turn of the slave-holding 
 Florida, and the non-slave-holding Wisconsin. It should be observed that 
 Delaware, "in which slavery is allowed by law, may be considered a non- 
 slave-holding State, and is often reckoned so. The President has generally 
 been from the South. 

 
 152 LETTER XIII. 
 
 Federal bond," says the North, " you destroy it. If you 
 go on thus, even for a short time, the Union will be dis- 
 solved indeed, and will exist only in name ; the slightest 
 accident will then be enough to abolish even the name." 
 In all these quarrels, however, even in that of Nullifica- 
 tion, when a part of the South threatened to break the 
 Federal compact, they have hitherto come to an under- 
 standing. Concessions have been made by both sides, but 
 more often by the North than by the South, and as they 
 have so long continued to preserve a Union, there is room 
 to hope, that they will still be able to live together for a 
 long time to come. 
 
 The general leaning of the South to an interpretation 
 of the constitution most favourable to the sovereignty of 
 the States, has led many of the southern politicians to main- 
 tain the doctrine of the unconstitutionality of the Bank ; 
 although in opposition to a formal decision of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, the chief-justice of which, 
 Judge Marshall, is more revered throughout the Union, 
 than any other southern man, and even more so in the 
 South than elsewhere. The Constitution, say the States' 
 rights puritans, does not give Congress power to establish 
 a Bank of the United States. On the other side, if they 
 are ticklish as to what they call the encroachments of one 
 branch of the national government, the Congress, they are 
 not less so as to those of which the Opposition accuses 
 another branch, that is, the President. Thus at the same 
 moment that they combat the Bank, they combat the 
 President also, on account of his measures against the 
 Bank. This third party is numerous in Virginia. Now 
 allowing the conclusions of the States' right party relative 
 to the Bank to be founded on a strict interpretation of the 
 law, they are none the less inadmissible in practice. And 
 as it is impossible in the United States to give turrency 
 to the maxim, piish the colonies rather than principle, the
 
 THE BANK- SLA VERY. 153 
 
 North entertains the hope that the States' rights party, 
 after the example of some of its leaders, such as Mr Cal- 
 houn and Mr McDuffie, will relax a little of the rigour of 
 their theories. The Administration, on the other hand, 
 is doing its utmost to preserve the theoretical notions 
 of Virginia on the Bank question in all their original 
 purity on their native soil, and Mr Van Buren, who is far- 
 sighted, lately sent the following toast to a 4th of July 
 dinner in that State : " Unqualified war on the Bank of 
 the United States" 
 
 The North, fortunately for itself, has a means of acting 
 upon the South, by slavery. This requires some explana- 
 tion. At the time of the declaration of Independence 
 (1776), slavery existed in all the States. During the war 
 of the Revolution, Pennsylvania, in 1780, adopted a plan 
 which soon exterminated it within her limits ; Massachu- 
 setts, in 1781, proclaimed slavery to be incompatible with 
 the laws already existing ; the other States of New Eng- 
 land, and finally New York, and the other States north of 
 the Potomac, with the exception of Delaware and Mary- 
 land, adopted measures similar to those of Pennsylvania.* 
 This was an easy matter for these States, their slaves not 
 forming more than one twentieth or one fifteenth of the 
 whole population. But it was a very different affair in 
 the South, where the proportion of slaves was six or seven 
 times greater, and where all the rural labour and menial 
 services were performed by slaves ; the institution of 
 slavery was, therefore, permitted to stand, in the South. 
 The acquisition of Louisiana and Florida has enlarged the 
 number of slave States, and by an oversight, which will 
 one day be bitterly rued, slavery has been authorised in 
 some of the new States, such as Missouri, where it would 
 
 * They consisted in declaring all persons born after a certain period free, 
 the children of a slave to remain in the service of her owner during a cur- 
 tain number of years. 
 
 20
 
 154 LETTER XIII. 
 
 be easy to do without the blacks.* In 1790, there were 
 660,000 slavesf distributed in six States, one Territory, 
 and the Federal District ; in 1830 there were 2,000,000, 
 in twelve States, two Territories, and the Federal District. 
 The white population of the slave section, in 1790, was 
 1,250,000, or as 190 to 100 ; in 1830, it was 3,760,000, 
 or as 186 to 100. The proportional increase of the slave 
 population would appear still greater if we added the free 
 blacks, and struck out the States of Delaware and Mary- 
 land. In 1830, the number of slaves in Louisiana and 
 South Carolina was greater than that of the whites. 
 
 In our days, slavery is a scourge to all the countries in 
 which it exists ; of this the people of the United States, 
 in the South as well as in the North, are convinced ; but 
 how to put an end to it ? The bloody experiment of St. 
 Domingo and its fatal consequences to the majority of the 
 blacks themselves, offer no encouragement to immediate 
 emancipation. The great experiment just making by the 
 English government in its colonies,;}; is not yet advanced 
 enough to afford any light. Besides, the English colonies 
 contain only about one third of the number of slaves now 
 in the United States. And supposing the slaves once 
 emancipated, what shall be done with them ? This ques- 
 tion is the most embarrassing of all, to one who is ac- 
 quainted with the wretched condition of the free blacks 
 in the United States. (See Note 16.) On the other hand, 
 the difficulties increase with the progress of time, and the 
 Southern States are, or think they are, obliged to adopt 
 
 * At the time of its admission into the Union, Missouri contained only 
 ten or eleven thousand slaves, which might have been easily sold in the 
 neighbouring slave-holding States. 
 
 t Deducting those in the Northern States. 
 
 \ The indemnity allowed to the owners amounts to about 125 dollars a 
 he^d, which for 2,500,000, the present number in the United Statei, would 
 amount to about 312 millions.
 
 THE BANK. SLAVERY. 155 
 
 measures in regard to the black population, which may be 
 defended by the plea of necessity, but which are never- 
 theless excessively harsh.* 
 
 In spite of all the precautions against an insurrection of 
 the blacks, the solicitude of the Southern States continu- 
 ally increases ; from the first of this month the blacks in 
 the English West Indies, which are within three days' 
 sail of the United States, are partially free. Between 
 those islands and the southern and northern ports, there is 
 an active commerce, and the communication is frequent. 
 Finally, religious proselytism, which has carried the mea- 
 sure of emancipation in England, has its organs in the 
 United States. There are not wanting philanthropists in 
 Boston, Philadelphia, and Ohio, who are always ready to 
 facilitate the escape of runaway slaves. Last winter, 
 while I was at Richmond, 40 or 50 slaves disappeared, 
 and there is no doubt that the fanatics of Philadelphia or 
 New England furnished them the means of flight. The 
 question of slavery, then, is, of all others, the most deep- 
 ly interesting and alarming to the Southern States. 
 Whenever it has been raised, even indirectly and seconda- 
 rily, they have vehemently remonstrated ; the moment it 
 
 * Some are surprised, that the slave and the free black are more severely 
 dealt with by the laws of the Southern States, than by those of a colony be- 
 longing to an absolute monarchy, Cuba for instance, and that, for example 
 it should be prohibited, under pain of fine and imprisonment, to teach them 
 to read or write. The contrary would be much more surprising. In a 
 country where there is perfect liberty for the free class, it would be impossi- 
 ble to sustain slavery unless by the severest legislation. If the slave should 
 read in your constitutions and bills of right, " that all men are born free 
 and equal," how can it be that he would not be in a standing conspiracy 
 against you ? It is just to observe that, in the United States, the slaves, 
 though intellectually and morally degraded, are humanely treated in a phy- 
 sical point of view. They are less severely tasked, better fed, and better 
 taken care of, than most of the peasants of Europe. Their rapid increase 
 attests their easy condition.
 
 156 LETTER XIII. 
 
 is touched, their voice is heard ; this is their weak side ; 
 here the North has a hold upon them. 
 
 In regard to slavery, the Northern States have never 
 departed from the policy of concession. This conduct of 
 the North may even appear like culpable connivance, to 
 Europeans not aware that the most precious treasure of 
 North America, that is to say, the Union, has been at stake. 
 The Northern States have written in their laws all that 
 the South has demanded ; they have granted to the south- 
 ern master the right to claim his runaway slave before 
 their own courts, so that the republican soil of the North 
 does not enjoy the privilege which belongs to some of the 
 monarchical countries of Europe, that of giving liberty to 
 whoever sets his foot upon it. The North has permitted 
 slavery to be maintained in the Federal District, in Wash- 
 ington, at the foot of the Capitol steps. The North, see- 
 ing the South in a flame on the Missouri question, stifled 
 its just repugnance to her admission. The North, which 
 has an interest in the recognition of Hayti, has yielded 
 that point, because the South declares that it would be 
 an encouragement to the slaves to revolt. Thus to main- 
 tain harmony in the Union, the North has pushed its con- 
 cessions even to silencing its religious feelings, its princi- 
 ples of liberty, its commercial interests. As the Union 
 promotes the good of all, all ought to be ready to make 
 sacrifices to preserve it, and it would be just, that the 
 South should renounce its theories about the constitution- 
 ality of a National Bank, theories which are belied by 
 long practice, and which have been formally condemned 
 by judges, of whom the South itself is proud. 
 
 Some months ago the public clamour imposed silence 
 on the Abolition Societies in the North, whose object is 
 the abolition of slavery in the South. The newspapers 
 contain details of the devastation and pillage committed 
 by a handful of people on the poor, inoffensive blacks.
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 157 
 
 during three consecutive nights of July, in New York, 
 and during the same number in Philadelphia, about a 
 week ago. Far be it from me to accuse the Opposition, 
 which has the majority in these two cities, of having been 
 an accomplice of these wretches ! Yet I believe I state a 
 fact when I say, that those terrible riots, in which houses, 
 schools, and churches were plundered and pulled down 
 every evening by the dozen, and in which peaceable per- 
 sons of colour were robbed and personally abused, would 
 have been more promptly repressed, had not the North, 
 above all things else, been eager to punish the Abolitionists, 
 and to show to the South that it had nothing in common 
 with them. The North, in a word, has given and con- 
 tinues to give to the South every conceivable guarantee on 
 the subject of slavery. The South, which may one day 
 need, not merely the passive forbearance, but the active 
 aid of the North against insurrection, should consider if 
 the North exacts too much in return, in asking toleration 
 for an institution indispensable to the North, and from 
 which the South itself has received nothing but favours. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 11, 1834. 
 
 THE autumnal elections have taken place in most of the 
 States, and have resulted favourably to the democratic 
 party and the President. Last April the mayor of New 
 York, who is a Jackson man, was chosen by the small 
 majority of 181 votes out of 35,147, and the Opposition
 
 158 LETTER XIV. 
 
 prevailed in the Common Council. The majority in favour 
 of General Jackson is now 2,400 ; several causes have 
 contributed to produce this result. 
 
 The name of the Bank, whose cause is closely con- 
 nected with that of the Opposition, sounds more and more 
 odious to the ears of the multitude ; this is unjust, but it 
 is, nevertheless, true, and some of the late measures of the 
 Bank have redoubled the animosity of the democratical 
 party towards it. It refused to show its books to the com- 
 mittee of inquiry appointed by the House of Representa- 
 tives, unless in the presence of the officers of the Bank, 
 and its enemies have persuaded the multitude, that the 
 Monster dared not reveal the secrets of its den to the 
 representatives of the people.* The Bank persists, con- 
 formably to the custom of merchants, in demanding dam- 
 ages on account of the protest by the French government 
 of the bill of exchange sold to the Bank by the Adminis- 
 tration, and has withheld the dividends due the United 
 States on their stock. The purpose is merely, say the 
 officers of the Bank, to bring the question of damages be- 
 fore the proper tribunal. But the democratic party takes 
 this act as the text for its tirades against the Bank. " Be- 
 hold it," they say, " setting itself above the laws, taking 
 the execution of justice into its own hands, and under 
 false pretences, laying hold of the public money." In 
 both these cases it is quite possible that the right was 
 wholly on the side of the Bank, but appearances are 
 against it, and nothing can be more injurious to it in a coun- 
 try governed by universal suffrage. Many of its friends, 
 admitting that the course of the Bank has been strictly 
 legal, would have preferred that a more prudent policy 
 had been adopted, both for the interest of the Bank itself 
 and of the Opposition. 
 
 x 
 
 The reason given for this refusal was the indiscreet use by a former 
 committee of inquiry, of notes made during a similar examination
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 159 
 
 The silence of the principal speakers in Congress, who 
 are almost all in the ranks of the Opposition, has no less 
 contributed to swell its losses since the close of the session. 
 The friends of the Administration in Congress, and more 
 especially in the Senate, were beaten in debate, they felt 
 it themselves, and their whole appearance was a formal 
 confession of defeat ; the whole party was disconcerted by 
 this hesitation and embarrassment of the leaders. Since 
 the 30th of June, the party, generals and soldiers, has had 
 time to rally ; they have restored their ranks beyond the 
 reach of the fire of Messrs Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, 
 and they have gained a victory, which four months ago 
 they could not have hoped for. The revival of business 
 in the country has also turned to the disadvantage of the 
 Opposition. During the April elections in New York, the 
 community was just recovering from a crisis, all classes 
 had suffered and were still suffering. It was difficult to 
 deny, that the distress had been caused by the President's 
 attack on the Bank, in what he himself called an experi- 
 ment. Commerce is now active again, the autumn busi- 
 ness has been good, and every thing encourages the ex- 
 pectation of a not less favourable state of the spring-trade. 
 General Jackson's experiment seems then to have succeed- 
 ed ; and a great number of persons who belong to the 
 democratic party as their natural element, and who had 
 quitted it in the spring, have very naturally fallen back 
 into its ranks. 
 
 But it is proper to explain the real extent of this victory 
 of the Administration ; the Opposition has not actually 
 been driven from its former positions, but the Jackson 
 party has maintained the greater number of those it be- 
 fore occupied, and has particularly stood firm in Pennsyl- 
 vania and New York. In a word, to judge by the elec- 
 tions that have already taken place, the House of Repre- 
 sentatives in the session that begins at the close of 1835,
 
 160 LETTER XIV. 
 
 will be, like the present House, composed of a majority of 
 Jackson men. The Opposition, however, has gained 
 rather than lost. It has carried the State of Maryland by 
 a considerable majority, and has even gained the demo- 
 cratic State of Ohio, upon which it hardly calculated ; ten 
 Representatives out of nineteen from that State, belong to 
 the Opposition, and although the Governor is of the Jack- 
 son party, the majority of the State legislature is Anti- 
 Jackson, an important circumstance because the legisla- 
 tures elect the Senators in Congress. 
 
 The elections in Pennsylvania, where the Opposition 
 has lost two representatives, have surprised no one, but 
 those in New York have disappointed all calculations. I 
 know that some well-informed Jackson men, who had 
 formed correct anticipations in regard to former elections, 
 did not expect a majority of more than three or four hun- 
 dred in the city, and, as I have before observed, they had 
 one of 2,400. The Opposition thought itself able to con- 
 test the possession of the State, and relied upon carrying 
 the city. It is certainly extraordinary, that the commer- 
 cial interest should be beaten in the first commercial city 
 in the New World, and such a result does no honour to the 
 system which has caused it. The unexpected triumph of 
 the Opposition in Ohio had redoubled their confidence in 
 New York ; they had celebrated with great display 
 the junction of the young giant of the West with the 
 Anti-Jackson forces. One of the magnificent steam- 
 boats belonging to the New York and Albany line, and 
 called the Ohio, had been sent up the river with cannon, 
 and the roar of its guns had been mingled with the shout 
 of the towns and villages on the Hudson. The little frigate 
 
 Constitution, the palladium of the opposition in New York,* 
 
 * 
 
 * This is a miniature frigate that takes its name from a favorite ship in the 
 American navy, which covered herself with glory in the last war under the 
 command of Hull, Bainbridge, and Stewart.
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 161 
 
 had been publicly paraded before the eyes of the multi- 
 tude. A packet-boat had been sent up the canal from 
 Albany, and made the new and flourishing towns, which 
 at once give to and take from that great artery of the 
 State, life, activity, and wealth, to resound with salvos of 
 artillery in honor of Ohio. But now the cannon of the 
 Opposition is silent, and that of Tammany Hall only is 
 heard. The little frigate, which during the elections was 
 hung up before the head-quarters of the Opposition, no 
 longer displays the coloured lights with which her rigging 
 was then illuminated. The streets of New York, which 
 do not indeed require it, receive no additional light, except 
 from the Jackson processions, which parade them nightly 
 by torch-light. 
 
 The New York elections are not only important in their 
 results, but also on account of the order which prevailed 
 while they were going on. During the last six months, 
 the spirit of anarchy had raised its head in the United 
 States in such a manner as to inspire serious alarm, even 
 among those not prone to be timid. You know what 
 happened in New York during the April elections ; several 
 months later, in July, the city became the theatre of a 
 series of outrages against the poor blacks, which were re- 
 peated several nights. In August the same excesses were 
 committed in Philadelphia, under the same pretext, and 
 with no less audacity and perseverance : then came the 
 brutal assault on the convent in Charlestown, when the 
 retreat of peaceful nuns devoted to the education of young 
 girls was attacked, plundered, and burnt down, without 
 the Selectmen of the town having the power or the cour- 
 age to make head against the rioters, and without the 
 well-disposed citizens, taken by surprise by this act of 
 savage intolerance, venturing to interfere. (See Note 17). 
 Hardly a month since, there was also an incendiary con- 
 flagration at Philadelphia on the evening of the election ; 
 21
 
 162 LETTER XIV. 
 
 six houses were burnt, and the fire-men were driven off by 
 the rioters, as at Charlestown, by main force. The same 
 evening, an event of a more grave character occurred ; 
 several muskets were discharged by some of the Opposi- 
 tion whom the mob had assailed with stones, several per- 
 sons were wounded, and one or two killed. A week before, 
 during the preparatory elections, an obscure and peace- 
 able individual was killed by a stab with a dagger. 
 
 A repetition of these scenes of disorder was feared in 
 New York ; but nothing of the sort occurred. Nearly 
 36.000 voters exercised their right of suffrage without any 
 disturbance, although both parties were highly excited. 
 The merit of this wise conduct is wholly due to the peo- 
 ple ; the Common Council had. indeed, taken extraordi- 
 nary measures for the preservation of the peace, but what 
 is here considered extraordinary, hardly comes up to the 
 ordinary police in Europe. If the multitude in the United 
 States abstain from acts of violence, it is because they 
 choose to do so ; if they preserve order, it is because they 
 love order. Three hundred constables more or less, in a 
 city of 260,000 souls, like New York, could do nothing. 
 Some persons, however, attribute this moderation of the 
 democracy wholly to its confidence in success, and insist, 
 that, if there had been any symptoms of the elections 
 going the other way, the streets would have been thronged, 
 as in April, by bodies of men armed with clubs. 
 
 The fate of the Bank has been decided by these elec- 
 tions. In fifteen months its charter expires, and the Bank 
 will die, to be revived ere long under a new form, when a 
 new series of commercial disasters, shall have proved to 
 the conviction of the most incredulous, that they cannot 
 get along without it. It is worthy of note, that it falls by 
 the hands of the two States that owe it the most, 'New 
 York and Pennsylvania. The blindness of Pennsylvania 
 in particular is inexplicable. Who would expect this stu-
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 163 
 
 pid fury in drying up the sources of its own prosperity ? 
 For without the Philadelphia capital, the interior districts 
 of the State would yet be a wilderness ; its one thousand 
 miles of canals and railroads, its innumerable bridges, the 
 finest wooden structures in the world, its numerous roads, 
 its manufactures and mines which now enrich it, would 
 not exist. Some persons assert, that Pennsylvania, which 
 begins with perhaps the most enlightened and refined city 
 in the United States, ends with a rural population of Ger- 
 man origin, the most ignorant and stupid in North America. 
 The conduct of the Pennsylvanians in regard to the Bank 
 is not calculated to change the opinion of these severe 
 judges.* As for the New York electors, it may be sup- 
 posed, that, if the seat of the Mother Bank were in their 
 capital, the votes of the town and the State would have 
 resulted very differently. 
 
 The only chance left for the Bank is, that the portion of 
 the South which is under the influence of Virginia, should 
 condescend to lend it a helping hand. Such an act of 
 generous compassion on the part of the South is not proba- 
 ble, but it is not absolutely impossible. I have often been 
 present at discussions between men of the South and the 
 North,, in which the latter have said to the former : "With- 
 out us you would be at the mercy of your slaves.; it is 
 our union with you which will prevent them from rising 
 and cutting your throats." The Southerners answered : 
 " We will take it upon ourselves to keep down our slaves ; 
 we shall have no need of your help against any attempts 
 at insurrection for a long time to come. All we ask of 
 you is, not to stir them up to revolt. But as for you, why 
 you are yourselves overwhelmed by a flood of ultra-dem- 
 
 * The able Correa, for some time Portuguese minister to the United States, 
 used to say, that this State reminded him of the Sphinx, which had the head 
 of an angel, and the body of a beast. This saying is often quoted in the 
 United States.
 
 164 LETTER XIV. 
 
 ocracy. Your workmen give you the law. Before long 
 you will be glad to get the aid of the South to restore the 
 balance which your universal suffrage has destroyed." The 
 South has now a fine opportunity to exercise in the North 
 this moderating power of which it boasts the possession. 
 
 Frederic the Great, having gained a victory over the 
 Imperialists just after the battle of Pontenoy, wrote to 
 Louis XV. : " I have just paid the draft which your 
 majesty drew on me at Fontenoy." General Jackson has 
 honoured the bill drawn on him by the New York electors 
 more promptly. A circular has been directed by the Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury to the receivers of the public mo- 
 ney, prohibiting the reception of certain drafts on the 
 branch banks. These drafts were issued, merely because 
 it was physically impossible for the president and cashier 
 of .the Mother Bank to sign five and ten dollar notes, fast 
 enough to supply the place of those that were worn out 
 or torn in the course of circulation. They have the same 
 form with the Bank-notes, and pass like them, although the 
 charter of the Bank makes no mention of them. This act 
 of the Administration will, however, do no injury to the 
 Bank ; for if it is obliged to withdraw all these drafts, 
 amounting to seven millions, from circulation, there is 
 nothing to prevent its issuing bills to the same amount. 
 The Bank is prepared for every event ; the amount of its 
 bills in circulation comprising the drafts on the branches, 
 does not exceed 17 millions, and its means in specie, or 
 other property that can be realised at a moment's warning, 
 exceed 20 millions. It will merely be necessary for the 
 president, Mr Biddle, and the cashier, Mr Jaudon, who 
 were already crowded with business, to devote three or 
 four hours a day to signing bills ; for the branch drafts 
 were only designed to relieve them from this duty. The 
 order of the Secretary of the Treasury amounts, therefore, 
 merely to a task inflicted on those gentlemen.
 
 THE ELECTIONS. 165 
 
 On both sides of the Atlantic, there is at present a re- 
 action against the aristocracy of money. Whilst here the 
 eternal chorus of No BANK ! DOWN WITH THE BANK ! 
 No RAG-MONEY ! is forever displayed on the liberty-poles 
 and the flags of the democracy, amongst us the bankers 
 are denounced from the national tribune by our most able 
 speakers. Do those who hope that industry will soon 
 raise itself to political influence and dignity, deceive them- 
 selves then ? Or are not rather the industrial classes 
 themselves, and particularly those who are at their headp 
 the financial class, yet unconscious of their future destiny, 
 and too slow to shake off the bad habits which they con- 
 tracted when the sword was law, and work was the lot of 
 slaves and serfs ? Do not these Princes of Industry pay 
 too little regard to those lofty and noble sentiments which 
 are well worth letters of nobility, and without which no 
 supremacy could ever be sustained ? To engage in public 
 affairs with dignity, the hands must be clean, the public 
 good must be prized above the money bags ; and yet, such 
 is the state of commercial dealings in our day, that, with- 
 out inheriting a double share of generosity and patriotism, 
 it is difficult to escape from them without becoming con- 
 taminated and .callous. How many honorable men are 
 there not in the industrial ranks, who groan over the cus- 
 toms to which they are obliged to conform, over the exam- 
 ples which they are obliged to imitate ? The Bank of 
 the United States must pay the penalty of the vices, 
 which even in our day degrade commerce, but which are 
 henceforth to belong only to history. It is punished for 
 the sins of others, for this great institution has not itself 
 deserved the reproach of cupidity ; the services it has 
 rendered to the country are immense ; those which it has 
 rendered itself, that is to say, its profits, have been mode- 
 rate. 
 
 I must,, however, do America the justice to observe,
 
 166 LETTER XV. 
 
 that, although the desire to make money is universal, yet 
 in the principal and older commercial centres, there is 
 more honesty and less illiberality than amongst us. 
 American selfishness is less contracted than ours ; it does 
 not stoop to petty meannesses ; it operates on a more 
 liberal scale. There are certainly wild speculators, blind 
 and desperate gamblers here also : but the objects of their 
 schemes are almost always enterprises of public utility. 
 The spirit of speculation in the United States has strown 
 this vast country with useful works, canals, railroads, 
 turnpike-roads, with manufactories, farms, villages, and 
 towns ; amongst us it has been more rash, wild, and fool- 
 ish, and much less productive in useful results. It is with 
 us mere stock-jobbing, without any good influence on 
 the prosperity of the country ; it is a game in which the 
 dice are loaded, in which the credulous lose the earnings 
 of years in a fever-fit of a moment. Its only results are 
 ruin and despair, and if it contributes to people any thing, 
 it is the cells of the mad-house. These are sad truths, but 
 truths which it may be useful to utter. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 PITTSBURG. 
 
 PITTSBURG, NOVEMBER 24, 1834. 
 
 SEVENTYSIX years ago this day, a handful of French- 
 men sorrowfully evacuated a fort, which stood on the 
 point of land where the Alleghany and Monongahela 
 mingle their waters to form the Ohio. The French, 
 with their faithful allies the Indians, had made a vigour-
 
 P1TTSBURG. 1(57 
 
 ous resistance ; they had defeated the expedition sent 
 against them in 1754, and compelled Washington, then a 
 lieutenant-colonel in the Virginia militia, to surrender Fort 
 Necessity. They had routed the troops of the boastful 
 Braddock, and spread terror, of which the memory is not 
 yet effaced, through the English colonies. But the desti- 
 ny of France was then in the hands of him, who of all 
 her kings will be most severely judged by the tribunal of 
 history. Under that most dissolute and selfish prince, 
 France, sacrificed to the paltry intrigues of the bed-cham- 
 ber, humbled at home, could not triumph abroad. The 
 French were, therefore, obliged to abandon Fort Duquesne ; 
 on that day, November 24, 1758, one of the most magni- 
 ficent schemes ever projected, was annihilated. 
 
 France had then possession of Canada and Louisiana ; 
 we were then masters of the two finest rivers, the two 
 largest and richest basins of North America, that of the 
 St. Lawrence and that of the Mississippi.* Between these 
 two basins nature has raised no barrier, so that in the 
 rainy seasons, canoes can pass from Lake Michigan into 
 the bed of the Illinois, and continue their course thence 
 without any obstruction to the Gulf of Mexico. The 
 plan of our heroic pioneers, priests, sailors, and soldiers, 
 had been to found the empire of New France in this great 
 valley. It is beyond a doubt, that this idea had attracted 
 the attention of Louis XIV., arid that its execution was 
 already begun by the erection of a chain of posts, the 
 sites of which were admirably chosen. There is no coun- 
 try in the world which comprises such an amount of so 
 highly fertile land ; none which offers natural routes of 
 communication comparable to the net-work of navigable 
 
 * The valley of the Mississippi with a small part of that of the St. Law- 
 rence belonging to the United States, is six times larger than all France. A 
 large tract in the extreme west is sterile ; but the most fertile portion, alrea- 
 dy occupied by States and Territories, is three times as large as France.
 
 168 LKTTER XV 
 
 rivers and streams spread over this great region. There is 
 none more healthy, for with the exception of a few points 
 or tracts subject to autumnal fevers, but which rapidly 
 lose this character when brought under cultivation, there 
 are only two infected spots, New Orleans and Natchez, in 
 which the yellow fever occasionally makes its appearance, 
 during a few months in the year. The sums swallowed up 
 by one of the foolish wars of Louis XV., would probably 
 have been amply sufficient to accomplish this noble pro- 
 ject. But the enterprise, although pushed forward by the 
 local agents with admirable zeal and sagacity, encountered 
 only indifference from the ministers at home, the great 
 point of whose policy was to know, who was to be the 
 favourite mistress of his Most Christian Majesty on the 
 morrow. The capture of Fort Duquesne was soon fol- 
 lowed by the conquest of all Canada by the English ; and 
 in 1763, by the treaty of Paris (these treaties of Paris 
 never bode us any good), France, exhibiting an example of 
 that complete submission and flat despair, of which our 
 annals exhibit so many instances, and the English so few, 
 ceded the basin of the St. Lawrence and the left bank of 
 the Mississippi to England, with one hand, and the right 
 bank of that great river to Spain, with the other. 
 
 Thus it came to pass, that the empire of New France, 
 like so many other magnificent schemes conceived in our 
 country, existed only on paper, or in the visions of youth- 
 ful officers, full of sagacity and boldness, and intrepid mis- 
 sionaries, heroes alike without a name, whose memory is 
 honoured only in the wigwam of some poor exiled Sa- 
 chem. Fort Duquesne is now become Pittsburg ; in vain 
 did I piously search for some relics of the French fortress : 
 there is no longer a stone, a brick, on the Ohio, to attest 
 that France bore sway here.* 
 
 * At Kingston, (U. C.) the site of Fort Frontenac, I found the remains of 
 a wall built by La Salle, or one of his successors, in the barrack yard of one 
 of the English regiments.
 
 PITTSBURGH 169 
 
 Pittsburg is at present essentially pacific ; if cannon and 
 balls are seen here, it is because a trading people make it 
 a rule to supply the market with whatever is wanted. 
 The cannon are new, fresh from the mould, and equally 
 at the disposition of the Sultan Mahmoud, or the Emperor 
 of Morocco, or the government of the States, whichever 
 will pay for them. Pittsburg is a manufacturing town, 
 which will one day become the Birmingham of America ; 
 one of its suburbs has already received that name. It is 
 surrounded, like Birmingham and Manchester, with a 
 dense, black smoke, which, bursting forth in volumes from 
 the founderies, forges, glass-houses, and the chimneys of 
 all the manufactories and houses, falls in flakes of soot 
 upon the dwellings and persons of the inhabitants ; it is, 
 therefore, the dirtiest town in the United States. Pitts- 
 burg is far from being as populous as Birmingham, but it 
 exhibits proportionally a greater activity. Nowhere in the 
 world is everybody so regularly and continually busy as 
 in Pittsburg ; I do not believe there is on the face of the 
 earth, including the United States, where in general very 
 little time is given to pleasure, a single town in which the 
 idea of amusement so seldom enters the heads of the in- 
 habitants. Pittsburg is, therefore, one of the least amusing 
 cities in the world ; there is no interruption of business for 
 six days in the week, except during the three meals, the 
 longest of which occupies hardly ten minutes, and Sunday 
 in the United States, instead of being, as with us, a day 
 of recreation and gaiety, is, according to the English cus- 
 tom, carried to a greater degree of rigour by the Anglo- 
 Americans, consecrated to prayer, meditation, and retire- 
 ment. By means of this energetic assiduity in work, 
 which is common to all ages and classes, and by the aid 
 of numerous steam-engines which labour like humble 
 slaves, the inhabitants of Pittsburg create an amount of 
 products, altogether dispro portioned to their number. The
 
 1 70 LETTER XV. 
 
 nature, bulk, and weight of the articles make this dispro- 
 portion more striking ; for, whether it be that American 
 art, yet a novice, cannot give the finish required for articles 
 of luxury and ornament, or that the Americans have the 
 good sense to discern at a glance, that the manufacture of 
 objects of the first necessity or of essential use, is more 
 profitable than that of the trinkets with which civilisation 
 seeks to adorn herself wherever there is wealth, and even 
 where there is none, only the ruder and coarser kinds of 
 work are done in Pittsburg. 
 
 Although Pittsburg is at this moment the first manu- 
 facturing town in the Union, it is yet far from what it is 
 destined one day to become. It stands in the midst of an 
 extensive coal-formation, the beds of which are very easily 
 worked. The district east of Pittsburg furnishes much 
 pig-iron, which is brought hither to be converted into 
 malleable iron, or into all kinds of machines, tools, and 
 utensils. Pittsburg has then coal and iron within reach ; 
 that is to say, power, and the lever by which the power is 
 to be applied. The vent for its wares is still more vast 
 than its means, for the whole basin of the Mississippi, 
 with all its lateral valleys, which on our continent would 
 be basins of the first class, lies open to it. The popula- 
 tion, which improves in its condition, as rapidly as it in- 
 creases in numbers,* creates an indefinite demand for the 
 engines and machines, hollow-ware, nails, horse-shoes, 
 glass, tools and implements, pottery, and stuffs of Pittsburg. 
 It needs axes to fell the primitive forests, saws to convert 
 the trees into boards, plough-shares and spades to turn up 
 
 * The valley of the Mississippi contained, exclusive of Indians, 
 
 In 1762 about 100,000 inhabitants, In 1810 1,365,000 , 
 In 1790 150,000 In 1820 2,625,000 
 
 In 1800 580,000 In 1830 4,232,000 
 
 The Indians, now mostly removed to the west of the Mississippi, number 
 
 oply about 300,000 souls.
 
 PITTSBURG. 171 
 
 the soil once cleared. It requires steam-engines for the 
 fleet of steamers, which throng the western waters. It 
 must have nails, hinges, latches, and other kinds of hard- 
 ware for houses ; it must have white lead to paint them, 
 glass to light them ; and all these new households must 
 have furniture and bed linen, for here every one makes 
 himself comfortable. 
 
 Thus Pittsburg is beginning to be what Birmingham 
 and St Etienne are, and what several places in the depart- 
 ments of the Aveyron and Gard will become, when we 
 become more enterprising^ and use the proper exertions to 
 develop all the resources now buried in the bowels of our 
 belle France, for so it is called everywhere abroad. Pitts- 
 burg is beside and must be a commercial city, a great mart. 
 Standing at the head of steam navigation on the Ohio, it 
 is, directly or indirectly, that is through the medium of 
 the more central cities of Cincinnati and Louisville, the 
 natural entrepot between the upper and lower country, the 
 North and the South. Pennsylvania has spared no pains 
 to secure and extend the advantages resulting from this 
 situation. It has made Pittsburg one of the pivots of its 
 great system of internal improvements, which was under- 
 taken with such boldness, and has been pursued with such 
 perseverance. Pittsburg is connected with Philadelphia 
 by a line of railroads and canals nearly four hundred miles 
 in length, and the numerous branches of the Pennsylvania 
 Canal give it a communication with all the most impor- 
 tant points in the State. A direct communication with 
 Lake Erie is, indeed, wanting, but it will soon have a 
 double and triple one. A railroad, 300 miles in length is 
 projected between Baltimore and the Ohio, and one third 
 of the distance is already completed ; the legislature of 
 Pennsylvania have made it a condition that the western 
 terminus of this work shall be at Pittsburg. A canal, for 
 which the plans and drawings were furnished by General
 
 172 LETTER XV. 
 
 Bernard, is to connect Chesapeake Bay by the way of 
 Washington with the Ohio, and the same condition in 
 favour of Pittsburg has been prescribed in this case. 
 
 Pittsburg is one of the few American towns, which owe 
 their birth to war ; it was at first one of the chain of 
 French forts, and was afterward occupied by the English 
 as a frontier post against the savages. In 1781, Pittsburg 
 consisted of a few houses under the protection of the can- 
 non of Fort Pitt. The origin of Cincinnati was similar ; 
 both commenced with a fortress, but more fortunate than 
 some of our great commercial towns, such as Havre, 
 which is stifled in the embrace of its fortifications, Pitts- 
 burg and Cincinnati have caused all traces of their original 
 destination to disappear. Of Fort Pitt, which the Eng- 
 lish constructed just above the site of Fort Duquesne, noth- 
 ing remains but a small magazine which has been con- 
 verted into a dwelling house ; another trace of the martial 
 epoch (which here forms the mythological ages), is the 
 name of Redoubt Alley, which is taken from a battery 
 once erected there, to sweep the Monongahela. At Cin- 
 cinnati, Fort Washington has been razed, and on its site 
 now stands a bazaar built by Mrs Trollope. Not one of 
 the least singular changes that have taken place in Amer- 
 ica within a half century, is the difference between the 
 old mode of founding a town, and the manner in which 
 they are at present made to rise out of the ground. 
 
 Some weeks ago I visited the anthracite coal district in 
 Pennsylvania (see Note 18); the Anthracite, the most 
 convenient kind of fuel, is at present in general use all 
 along the Atlantic coast from Washington to Boston, and 
 its introduction has made a revolution in household matters. 
 Six or seven years since, when the demand for it was sud- 
 denly very much increased, the district which contains 
 the coal-beds became the subject of speculation, at first 
 prudently conducted, but finally growing wild and extrava- 

 
 PITTSBURG. 173 
 
 gant. The speculators vied with each other in tracing out 
 town-plots ; I have seen detailed plans, with straight streets 
 and fine public squares scrupulously, reserved, of cities 
 which do not actually consist of a single street, of towns 
 which hardly contain three houses. This frenzy gave 
 birth, however, to one town of 3,000 inhabitants, Potts- 
 ville, to ten or twelve railroads, great and small, to several 
 canals, basins, and mining explorations, that have proved 
 pretty successful. As for the great cities, several of them 
 have really become flourishing villages, although the 
 dreams of their founders have not proved true. 
 
 In this anthracite region, in the manufacturing districts 
 of the North East, along the New York canals, and in all 
 parts of the West, a traveller often has an opportunity of 
 seeing the process of building towns. First rises a huge 
 hotel with a wooden colonnade, a real barrack, in which 
 all the movements, rising, breakfasting, dining, and sup- 
 ping, are regulated by the sound of a bell with military 
 precision, uniformity, and rapidity, the landlord being, as 
 a matter of course, a general or, at least, a colonel of the 
 militia. The bar-room is at once the exchange, where 
 hundreds of bargains are made under the influence of a 
 glass of whiskey or gin, and the club-room, which resounds 
 with political debate, and is the theatre of preparations for 
 civil and military elections. At about the same time a 
 post-office is established ; at first the landlord commonly 
 exercising the functions of postmaster. As soon as there 
 are any dwelling-houses built, a church or meeting-house 
 is erected at the charge of the rising community ; then 
 follow a school-house and a printing press with a news- 
 paper, and soon after appears a bank, to complete the three- 
 fold representation of religion, learning, and industry. 
 
 A European of continental Europe, in whose mind the 
 existence of a bank is intimately associated with that of a 
 great capital, is very much surprised even for the hundredth
 
 174 LETTER XV. 
 
 time, at finding one of these institutions in spots yet in 
 an intermediate state between a village and the primitive 
 forest inhabited by bears and rattle-snakes. On the banks 
 of the Schuylkill, which has lately been canalled, and 
 which, flowing from the coal-region, empties itself into 
 the Delaware near Philadelphia, may be seen the begin- 
 nings of a town, built during the time of the mining specu- 
 lations, at the head of navigation. Port Carbon, for that 
 is its name, consists of about thirty houses standing on 
 the declivity of a valley, and disposed according to the 
 plan of the embryo city. Such was the haste in which 
 the houses were built, that there was no time to remove 
 the stumps of the trees that covered the spot ; the standing 
 trees were partially burnt and then felled with the axe, 
 and their long, charred trunks still cumber the ground. 
 Some of them have been converted into piles for support- 
 ing the railroads that bring down the coal to the boats ; 
 the blackened stumps, four or five feet high, are still stand- 
 ing, and you make your way from one house to another 
 by leaping over the prostrate trunks and winding round 
 the standing stumps. In the midst of this strange scene, 
 appears a large building with the words, OFFICE OF DE- 
 POSIT AND DISCOUNT. SCHUYLKtLL BANK. The 
 existence of a bank amidst the stumps of Port Carbon, 
 surprised me as much as the universal neatness and ele- 
 gance of the peaceful Philadelphia, or the vast fleet which 
 is constantly receiving and discharging at the quays of 
 New York, the products of all parts of the world. 
 
 I return to the triple emblem of the church, the school 
 with the printing-press, and the bank. A society which 
 is formed by accretion around such a nucleus, must differ 
 more and more from the present European society, which 
 was formed chiefly under the auspices of war, and by a 
 succession of conquests, following one upon another. 
 American society, taking for its point of departure labour.
 
 PITTSHURG. 175 
 
 based upon a condition of general ease on one side, and on 
 a system of common elementary education on the other, 
 and moving forward with the religious principle for its 
 lode-star, seems destined to reach a degree of prosperity, 
 power, and happiness, much superior to what we have 
 attained with our semi-feudal organisation, and our fixed 
 antipathy against all moral rule and all authority. It pre- 
 sents, doubtless, especially in the newer States, many im- 
 perfecjions, and it will have to submit to various modifica- 
 tions ; this is the lot of all unfinished works, even when 
 God himself is the maker. But a few errors and follies 
 are of little import in the eyes of those whose thoughts 
 are occupied with the great interests of the future rather 
 than with the paltry troubles of the present hour. Of 
 little moment are the disgust and disappointment that 
 a European of delicate nerves may have to encounter, 
 if, for the purpose of killing time, he ventures upon a 
 western steamboat, or into a western tavern ; so much the 
 worse for him, if he has fallen into a country where there 
 is no place for an idle tourist, seeking only for amusement ! 
 Let the foreigner smile at the simplicity and extravagance 
 of national vanity. That patriotic pride, rendered excu- 
 sable by brilliant success, will be moderated ; the errors 
 and the follies are daily correcting themselves ; the una- 
 voidable rudeness of the backwoodsman will be softened, 
 as soon as there are no more forests to fell, no more swamps 
 to drain, no more wild beasts to destroy. The evil will 
 pass away, and is passing away ; the good remains and 
 grows and spreads, like a grain of mustard.
 
 176 LETTER XVI. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 
 
 LOUISVILLE, (Kv.), DECEMBER 15, 1834. 
 
 You must have been astonished in France at the Presi- 
 dent's Message ; here the sharp and reckless tone of a 
 portion of the press had prepared the public mind for some 
 energetic demonstration ; but the Message has exceeded 
 the hopes of those who wished to assume an attitude of 
 defiance in regard to France, and the fears of those who 
 dreaded some imprudent step. Had such a paper come 
 from any former President, from Washington to John 
 duincy Adams, it would have been looked upon as an 
 expression of the sentiments of a majority of the Ameri- 
 can people. Neither of them would have been willing 
 thus to commit the United States, without being sure that 
 the national will really required it. Their rule of action 
 would have been to let themselves be pushed on by the 
 nation, rather than to draw it after them, or to go beyond 
 it ; and this, in fact, is more conformable to notions of self- 
 government. They would have had the question profoundly 
 discussed by the cabinet, not only orally, but in writing, 
 as Washington did at the time of the establishment of the 
 first bank in 1791. They would have consulted indivi- 
 dually some of the leading statesmen of the country of 
 all parties and all interests. They would have listened 
 patiently to the representations of those upon whom the 
 heavy burden of war would have most directly fallen, the 
 merchants of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
 Charleston, New Orleans, and other large ports ; and final- 
 ly, after having weighed all objections, measured all diffi- 
 culties, if they had been convinced that the interest and
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 177 
 
 honour of their country absolutely required the appeal 
 to the last argument, they would have reluctantly ad- 
 dressed the challenge to their oldest ally and friend, 
 to the firmest stay of liberty and improvement in the 
 Old World. 
 
 General Jackson has changed all this ; the rules of con- 
 duct and the policy of his administration are no longer 
 those adopted by the wisdom of his predecessors. Some 
 may maintain that this change is for the better ; on this 
 point, the future, and no distant future, will decide ; but 
 the fact of a change is undeniable. General Jackson pos- 
 sesses in the highest degree the qualities necessary for con- 
 ducting a partisan warfare. Bold, indefatigable, vigilant, 
 quick-sighted, with an iron will and a frame of adamant, 
 devoted to his friends, harsh and terrible to his enemies, 
 making light of obstacles, passionately fond of danger, 
 his campaigns against the Creeks and Seminoles were 
 marked by the most brilliant success, and his resistance to 
 the English army under Packenham, at New Orleans, was 
 heroic. By these exploits and the enthusiasm which mili- 
 tary services excite in all countries, General Jackson found 
 himself the most popular man in the Union, when the 
 founders of the national independence disappeared, and 
 naturally became the candidate for the presidential chair. 
 Objections were made to his unbending temper, the impa- 
 tience of contradiction which he had shown throughout 
 his whole career, his obstinacy in following his own im- 
 pulses, in spite of the provisions of the laws, and his dis- 
 position to use the sword of Alexander, rather than to con- 
 form himself to the delays of constitutional forms. His 
 natural propensities, strengthened by the habits of military 
 command, and by the peculiarities of that kind of warfare 
 in which he had been engaged, must, it was urged, have 
 become ungovernable ; and it would be impossible for him 
 to acquire that moderation, which is necessary in the ex- 
 23
 
 178 LETTER XVI. 
 
 ercise of civil authority. It was predicted that in politics, 
 as in war, he would be zealous for his friends, implacable 
 towards his adversaries, violent against whoever should 
 attempt to check his course ; that, instead of being above 
 party-quarrels, he would come down into the arena in per- 
 son. His arrest of a judge in New Orleans, the execution 
 of the militia men. and of the two Englishmen, Arbuthnot 
 and Ambristier, his invasion and conquest of Florida in 
 time of peace, his anger and threats when Congress was 
 deliberating upon charges founded on these summary acts, 
 were all dwelt upon. 
 
 But his chivalric character, his lofty integrity, and ar- 
 dent patriotism, seemed sufficient guarantees for his con- 
 duct, and from reasons of domestic policy, which it would 
 take too much time to explain, many enlightened men, 
 who had at first treated the idea of supporting him for the 
 presidency with ridicule, gave into the plan, trusting that 
 they should be able to exercise a salutary influence over 
 him. His fiery temper seemed in fact to be calmed by 
 his elevation ; the recollection of his professions, which, 
 at the moment they were made, were made in good faith, 
 was yet fresh ; he had conscientiously resolved to observe 
 the principles consecrated by Washington, Jefferson, and 
 and the other patriarchs of America, to keep himself scru- 
 pulously within the narrow limits of prerogative, as he 
 had traced them or allowed them to be traced out for him ; 
 to follow the current of public opinion, without seeking to 
 bar its course or divert it from its regular channels ; to be 
 moderate, patient, and calm. During his first term, he 
 continued pretty faithful to his resolution, to his professed 
 principles, and to the advice of those who raised him to 
 his seat. But this state of constraint was insupportable to 
 him ; it is too late to reform at the age of sixty years. 
 
 Besides, it is not all ' temperaments, or, I should rather 
 say, the distinctive qualities of all men, that can adapt
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 179 
 
 themselves to that high sphere of serenity, in which he 
 who governs others should move. Such a conformity was 
 even more difficult for General Jackson than for any other 
 man ; the turbulence and impetuosity of youth had not 
 been tempered in him either by age or by the fatigues of 
 war. And in a country where universal suffrage prevails, 
 political disputes are of a character to exhaust the patience 
 of an angel. Step by step, then, the stormy propensities 
 of the Tennessee planter were seen returning. The 
 character of the bold, daring, restless, obstinate, fiery, in- 
 domitable partisan chief, of the conqueror of the Creeks 
 and Seminoles, gradually broke through the veil of re- 
 serve, caution, gravity, and universal good- will which had 
 covered it, and tore in pieces the constitutional mantle 
 in which his friends had taken so much pains to wrap 
 him. 
 
 At length, in 1832, South Carolina furnished a natural 
 occasion for giving the rein to his warlike propensities, 
 which had now been curbed for four years. That State had, 
 on its own individual authority, declared the tariff act of 
 Congress null and void, and had armed its militia to sustain 
 its nullification Ordinance. The President immediately 
 began preparations for war, retaining, however, the lan- 
 guage of moderation, and obtained an act of Congress 
 (the Force Bill) authorising him to employ all means to 
 maintain the laws of the United States ; when this storm 
 was laid (see Note 5), General Jackson was proclaimed 
 the saviour of the Constitution ; and perhaps sufficient 
 care was not taken to prevent a very natural mistake of an 
 old soldier, and to make him sensible that the congratula- 
 tions of a grateful people were addressed less to his war- 
 like attitude, than to the pacific measures taken under his 
 auspices. In the heat of debate and the shout of acclama- 
 tion that followed the restoration of order, the old military 
 leaven began to ferment in the President's heart, and
 
 180 LETTER XVI. 
 
 without a pause, he rushed into a vigourous campaign 
 against the Bank. This was a war almost without provo- 
 cation, certainly without a just cause, and for some time it 
 appeared that the General would be worsted. But he 
 held his own, and neither bent nor broke. In this affair 
 he was the same OLD HICKORY that the Indians had found 
 always and everywhere on their trail, whom they could 
 neither tire nor surprise, and upon whom they could get 
 no hold, either by force or fraud. The last elections of 
 Representatives assure him the victory, and the Bank is 
 condemned to the fate of the Creeks and Seminoles, of 
 Mr Clay and Mr Calhoun, of the Spanish government of 
 Florida, and of the English General Packenham (see 
 Note 19.) 
 
 The intoxication of success seems to have restored all 
 the fire of his youth, and at an age when other men look 
 only towards repose, he requires new perils and new 
 fatigues. Last winter, Mr Clay declared in the Senate, 
 that, if phrenology were a true science, President Jackson 
 must certainly have the bump of combativeness, for his 
 life had been nothing but the perpetual exercise of that 
 appetite ;" at fourteen years of age, against the English, 
 then against his neighbours the first settlers of Tennessee, 
 not a very tractable race, and who handled the knife, the 
 sword, the pistol, and the rifle, with as much promptness 
 as himself; next against the Indians, the English, the 
 Indians again, and the inoffensive Spaniards ; then against 
 Mr Clay, Mr Calhoun, and South Carolina, and finally, for 
 want of other adversaries, he was engaged in a bout with 
 the Bank. The General seems, in fact, to be possessed 
 with the demon of war ; for no sooner had he put his foot 
 on the throat of the Bank, than he required a new enemy, 
 .and finding in America none but vanquished adversaries, 
 or objects unworthy of his anger, he flings down the glove 
 to France. Thus far the defiance thrown out to France
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 181 
 
 is merely the expression of General Jackson's humour. 
 But, unluckily, this act of an individual emanates from a 
 man who is President of the United States until the 4th 
 of March, 1837, and who is even more pertinacious in his 
 enmities than in his friendships. Unluckily too, the defi- 
 ance has been inserted in a solemn document, which is 
 looked upon in Europe as the faithful exhibition of the 
 sentiments of the American people. And finally, the 
 man who has set the United States in this posture, has 
 just made an experiment which shows the degree to which 
 he can lead the people to espouse his personal quarrels. 
 
 His tactics in politics, as well as in war, is to throw 
 himself forward with the cry of, comrades, follow me! 
 and this bold stroke has succeeded admirably in the case 
 of the Bank. If he had recommended to Congress to 
 withdraw the public deposites from that institution, he 
 would certainly have failed; Congress would have de- 
 clared against it. He, therefore, boldly took the first step 
 himself, and ordered the removal, in opposition to the advice 
 of the majority of his cabinet, two months before the 
 meeting of Congress, without the slightest possible pre- 
 tence of the urgency of the measure. / will take the 
 responsibility, he said. The Secretary of the Treasury 
 refused to execute the order, because he considered it a 
 fatal abuse of power, and he was dismissed. The majority 
 of the House of Representatives, and in the last elections, 
 of the people, have sanctioned those dictatorial acts. Gen- 
 eral Jackson has, indeed, lost most of his friends in the 
 enlightened classes and among the merchants, but he cares 
 little for individuals, however distinguished ; by virtue of 
 universal suffrage, it is numbers that rule here. 
 
 Will the bold policy by which he carried the multitude 
 against the Bank, be as successful now that he attempts to 
 edge them on against France ? It may be compared to
 
 182 LETTER XVI. 
 
 one of those feats of strength, in which one may succeed 
 the first and even the second time, but will break his 
 back the third. General Jackson may be considered to 
 possess that sort of popularity which is irresistible for a 
 short time ; but the duration and solidity of which are in 
 the inverse ratio of its intensity and brilliancy ; this, 
 however, is a mere conjecture. One thing is certain, that 
 the General has the majority in the House of Representa- 
 tives, and from what is known of the composition of the 
 next Congress, there is every appearance that he will keep 
 it during the term of his Presidency ; whilst the Opposi- 
 tion, which now has the majority in the Senate, may lose 
 it after the present session. Besides, it is not plain to me, 
 that the Opposition will be unanimous in censuring the 
 measures of General Jackson in regard to France. The 
 opponents of General Jackson, as well as his friends, are 
 obliged to court their common sovereign, the people. 
 Now in all countries the multitude are very far from being 
 cosmopolites ; their patriotism is more lively and warm, 
 but it is also more brutal, more unjust, and more arrogant, 
 than that of the higher classes. In France, they cry with 
 enthusiasm, Our country before all things! Here the 
 word is, Our country, right or wrong I which is the per- 
 fection of national selfishness. 
 
 As General Jackson is not, however, a madman or a 
 fool, it is difficult to imagine, that he wishes the United 
 States to pass at once from a close friendship to a state of 
 hostility with France. If he thinks that France has 
 exceeded all reasonable bounds of delay, that she has ex- 
 hausted all the patience she had a right to expect from an 
 old ally, from a nation whose independence was bought 
 with our blood and our treasure, why is he not content 
 with proposing measures of commercial restriction ? A 
 duty upon our goods would also be a means of paying the
 
 GENERAL JACKSON. 183 
 
 twentyfive millions. He knows, that, if France has more 
 to lose than the United States in a war of tariffs, the 
 United States, whose commerce and navigation are miich 
 more extensive than ours, have more to lose in a war 
 of cannon, of which the sea would naturally be the 
 theatre. But which class in the United States will suffer 
 most by a war ? The commercial, certainly. Who own 
 the vessels and the goods ? Oh ! the merchants and ship- 
 owners who vote against the General and his friends, his 
 adversaries whom he detests and despises ; the traders of 
 Boston, who beheaded his statue on the bows of the Con- 
 stitution frigate ; those of New York, who have had cari- 
 cature medals struck at Birmingham, holding up his gov- 
 ernment to hatred and contempt ; the capitalists of Phila- 
 delphia, friends of Mr Biddle and admirers of Mr Clay. 
 General Jackson troubles himself very little about the 
 interest of such fellows as these. 
 
 On the contrary, an increase of the customs duties, 
 whatever should be the motive of it, would be particularly 
 hurtful to the Southern States, and would be very unwel- 
 come to them. As it is the South that produces cotton, 
 the principal article of export from the United States to 
 France; the reprisals which the French government would 
 not fail to make, would fall chiefly upon the South. Now 
 the democratic party at present needs the support of the 
 South, and is courting Virginia in particular, the most in- 
 fluential of the Southern States. The success of the 
 plans of the democratic party, that is to say, the election 
 of Mr Van Buren to the presidency, depends much upon 
 the attitude taken by Virginia, not in 1836, the year of 
 the election, but the present year, not tomorrow but to-day. 
 Public opinion is yet undecided in Virginia ; it is desirable, 
 at any price, to prevent it from leaning in any degree to 
 the side of the Opposition, and it is well understood that
 
 184 LETTER XVI. 
 
 Virginia will not consent to laying any especial burdens 
 on the South. The Virginia legislature is now in session, 
 and one of its first acts will be the choice of a Senator in 
 Congress. If Mr Leigh, the present Senator, is chosen, 
 then it will be committed in favour of the Opposition, 
 and perhaps lost to the democratic party. The loss of the 
 legislature may involve that of the State ; the loss of 
 Virginia may involve that of the South. Considerations 
 of this kind have much more weight here than would be 
 imagined in Europe. In the midst of the changing insti- 
 stitutions of this country, politicians live only from hand 
 to mouth. 
 
 It sometimes happens that European governments are 
 clogged in their foreign policy by domestic difficulties. 
 General Jackson would have been more cautious, if he 
 had not thought that such is the position of the French 
 government at this moment. But be assured, that he 
 also has his domestic embarrassments, which affect his 
 measures. This is more peculiarly the case with him 
 than with any other President, because he is more a man 
 of party, more entangled in party meshes, than any of his 
 predecessors. Congressional intrigues and sectional in- 
 terests create the same difficulties here, particularly for an 
 administration like his, which amongst us result from an 
 ill-balanced population, and the burden of the past. The 
 French government may be confident of this, and ought 
 to act conformably.
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 LOUISVILLE, DECEMBER 22, 1834. 
 
 THE first impression produced in the United States by 
 General Jackson's Message, was astonishment, as the tone 
 was wholly unexpected to every one. In Europe, I sup- 
 pose that it will have excited more than surprise, and it 
 will be a matter of wonder, how a measure so rash and 
 reckless could have emanated from a government, which, 
 from its origin, has been characterised by address and pru- 
 dence. I have already attempted to give an explanation 
 of this mystery, and I have stated, that this quasi declara- 
 tion of war was altogether an individual affair of General 
 Jackson, that in this, as in every thing else, he has acted 
 from his own impulse. The enlightened statesmen, who 
 surrounded him in the beginning of his government, and 
 whose wise counsels repressed his ardour, no longer have 
 any influence. One after another has been separated from 
 him, and several, such as Mr Calhoun, who, during his 
 first term, was Vice-President, are now become his irre- 
 concileable enemies. His position, as the head of the 
 democratic party, obliges him, therefore, to supply some 
 fuel for the furious passions, which the late contests had 
 kindled. 
 
 It would be a mistake to judge of the reception of a 
 document of this character in this country, by what would 
 take place under similar circumstances in Europe. Public 
 opinion has not the same arbiters here as in European 
 societies ; what is called public opinion in Europe, is the 
 generally current opinion among the middling and higher 
 classes, that of the merchants, manufacturers, men of let- 
 24
 
 186 LETTER XVII. 
 
 ters, and statesmen, of those who, having inherited a com- 
 petency, devote their time to study, the fine arts, and, un- 
 fortunately too often, to idleness. These are the persons, 
 who govern public opinion in Europe, who have seats in 
 the chambers, fill public offices, and manage or direct the 
 most powerful organs of the press. They are the polite 
 and cultivated, who are accustomed to self-control, more 
 inclined to scepticism than fanaticism, and on their guard 
 against the impulses of enthusiasm ; to whose feelings all 
 violence is repugnant, all rudeness and all brutality offen- 
 sive ; who cherish moderation often even to excess, and 
 prefer compromises and half-measures. Among persons like 
 these, General Jackson's message would have met with 
 universal condemnation, or rather if General Jackson had 
 derived his ideas from such a medium, he would never 
 have dictated such a message. 
 
 The minority, which in Europe decides public opinion, 
 and by this means is sovereign, is here deposed, and 
 having been successively driven from post to post, has 
 come to influence opinion only in a few saloons in the 
 large cities, and to be itself under as strict guardianship as 
 minors, women, and idiots. Until the accession of General 
 Jackson, it had, however, exercised some influence over 
 all the Presidents, who were generally scholars, and all of 
 whom, aside from their party connections, were attached 
 to it by family and social relations, and by their habits of 
 life. Up to the present time, this class had also preserved 
 some influence over the two houses ; but it has now com- 
 pletely broken with the President, or rather the President 
 has broken with it ; it has no longer any credit, except 
 with one of the Houses, because the Senate still consists 
 of men whom it may claim as belonging to it by their 
 superior intelligence, education, and property. The dem- 
 ocracy does not fail, therefore, to stigmatise the Senate as 
 an aristocratic body, and to call it the House of Lords.
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 187 
 
 j ^ 
 
 The mass, which in Europe bears the pack and receives 
 the law, has here put the pack on the back of the enlight- 
 ened and cultivated class, which among us on the other 
 hand, has the upper hand. The farmer and the mechanic 
 are the lords of the New World ; public opinion is their 
 opinion ; the public will is their will ; the President is 
 their choice, their agent, their servant. If it is true that 
 the depositaries of power in Europe have been too much 
 disposed to use it in promoting their own interests, with- 
 out consulting the wishes and the welfare of the mass 
 beneath them, it is no less true that the classes which 
 wield the sceptre in America are equally tainted with sel- 
 fishness, and that they take less pains to diguise. it. In a 
 word, North America is Europe with its head down and 
 its feet up. European society, in London and Paris as 
 well as at St. Petersburg, in the Swiss republic as well as 
 in the Austrian empire, is aristocratical in this sense, 
 that, even after all the great changes of the last fifty years, 
 it is still founded more or less absolutely on the principle 
 of inequality or a difference of ranks. American society 
 is essentially and radically a democracy, not in name 
 merely but in deed. In the United States the democratic 
 spirit is infused into all the national habits, and all the cus- 
 toms of society ; it besets and startles at every step the 
 foreigner, who, before landing in the country, had no sus- 
 picion to what a degree every nerve and fibre had been 
 steeped in aristocracy by a European education. It has 
 effaced all distinctions, except that of colour ; for here a 
 shade in the hue of the skin separates men more widely 
 than in any other country in the world. It pervades 
 all places, one only excepted, and that the very one 
 which in Catholic Europe is consecrated to equality, 
 the church ; here all whites are equal, every where, 
 except in the presence of Him, in whose eyes, the
 
 188 LETTER XVII. 
 
 distinctions of this world are vanity and nothingness.* 
 Strange inconsistency ! Or rather solemn protest, attesting 
 that the principle of rank is firmly seated in the human 
 heart by the side of the principle of equality, that it must 
 have its place in all countries and under all circum- 
 stances ! 
 
 Democracy everywhere has no soft words, no supple- 
 ness of forms ; it has little address, little of management ; it 
 is apt to confound moderation with weakness, violence 
 with heroism. Little used to self-control, it gives itself 
 unreservedly to its friends, and sets them up as idols to 
 whom it burns incense ; it utters its indignation and its 
 suspicions against those of whom it thinks that it has 
 cause for complaint, rudely, and in a tone of anger and 
 menace. It is intolerant towards foreign nations; the 
 American democracy in particular, bred up in the belief 
 that the nations of Europe groan ignobly under the yoke of 
 absolute despots, looks upon them with a mixture of pity and 
 contempt. When it throws a glance beyond the Atlantic, 
 it aifects the superior air of a freeman looking upon a herd 
 of slaves. Its pride kindles at the idea of humbling the 
 
 * In Roman Catholic countries, the churches, vast structures, are open to 
 all without distinction ; each takes his seat where he pleases ; all ranks are 
 confounded. In the United States the churches are very numerous and 
 very small, being built by joint-stock companies. They are appropriated to 
 the exclusive use of the proprietors, with the exception of one free-seat for 
 the poor, each one's share of property being designated by an enclosed 
 space or a pew. The whole floor of the church is thus occupied by pews, 
 and the gallery is generally divided in the same manner, though a part of the 
 latter is generally open and free to all. Each pew is sold and transferred 
 like any other property ; the price varies according to the town, the sect, or 
 the situation. The proprietors pay an annual tax for the support of public 
 worship, lighting, and warming the church, and the minister's salary, the 
 amount of the tax being proportioned to the value of the pew. Sometimes 
 the church itself owns the pews, and the rent covers the expenses of the 
 public worship. According to this system, the place occupied by the wor- 
 shippers depends on their wealth, or, at least, on the price they are able or 
 willing to pay for their pews.
 
 PUBLIC OPINION. 189 
 
 monarchical principle in the person of the " tyrants who 
 tread Europe under foot." 
 
 It may, then, be expected, that public opinion here will 
 approve the Message, both as to its manner and matter, 
 that it will consider it full of moderation and propriety. 
 It is probable, that most of the men and the journals of 
 the Opposition will fear to censure it openly and boldly. 
 Not that the Jackson men themselves are unanimous in its 
 favour ; but that the speakers and writers of the Oppo- 
 sition consider themselves and are, bound to pay hom- 
 age to the sovereign people, that they are all obliged 
 to court the multitude, which is not very managea- 
 ble in regard to points of national dignity and vanity. 
 A certain number of journals and of political men have 
 expressed their views as to the occasion and the con- 
 sequences of a declaration of war with independence, 
 and have been able to reconcile their patriotism with a 
 lofty courtesy toward the oldest and the most faithful 
 ally of America; but these are exceptions to the general 
 rule. Some of the best informed and most influential of 
 the Opposition journals have, to the general astonishment, 
 suddenly turned right-about-face, and welcomed the part 
 of the Message relative to France with acclamations. 
 Thus they appear more democratic than the democracy, 
 furious upon a point of honour, ready to sacrifice every 
 thing in order to obtain redress for an outrage, to which, 
 after twenty years, they have now first become sensible. 
 He, who yesterday was a peaceful and reasonable wri- 
 ter, is to-day a thunderbolt of war, can talk of nothing 
 but the violated national dignity, thinks only of blowing 
 up the flame. The cause of this sudden change is this ; 
 if the United States were at war, they would spend a 
 great deal of money, and a Bank then would be indispen- 
 sable to the Federal government. Now a Bank and the 
 Bank is at bottom all one. This is what is called po-
 
 190 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 licy, cleverness, but it remains to be seen if the demo- 
 cratic party will be the dupe of such arts, and if those 
 who are most interested in the existence of the Bank, that 
 is, the merchants of New York, Boston, and New Orleans, 
 and even those of Philadelphia, wish to have a Bank at 
 any price. 
 
 Happily for the peace of the world, the majority of the 
 Senate of the United States consists of men eminent for 
 their experience, their ability, arid their patriotism, who 
 judge the interests of their country on grounds of high 
 policy, and who, among other questions, will not fail to 
 consider this ; whether it would not be the worst of all 
 means of securing the liberty of the seas, an object which 
 they have at heart, for the French and American navies 
 to destroy each other. They do not hesitate, when cir- 
 cumstances require it. to take a stand above the demands of 
 an ephemeral popularity, and to meet the difficulties face 
 to face. A handful of firm and eloquent men in this illus- 
 trious assembly, was sufficient last winter to sustain the 
 shock of the popular masses, and to check and bear them 
 back. The Senate has only to continue equal to itself, to 
 deserve well of its country and of mankind. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 MEMPHIS, (TENN.), JAN. 1, 1835. 
 
 CINCINNATI has been made famous by Mrs Trollope, 
 whose aristocratic feelings were offended by the pork-trade, 
 which is here carried on on a great scale. From her accounts
 
 CINCINNATI. 191 
 
 many persons have thought that every body in Cincinnati 
 was a pork merchant, and the city a mere slaughter-house. 
 The fact is that Cincinnati is a large and beautiful town, 
 charmingly situated in one of those bends which the Ohio 
 makes, as if unwilling to leave the spot. The hills which 
 border the Belle Riviere (Beautiful River, the French 
 name of the Ohio) through its whole course, seem here to 
 have receded from the river bank, in order to form a lofty 
 plain, to which they serve as walls, whenever the Ohio 
 does not serve as a foss, and on which man might 
 build a town above the reach of the terrible floods 
 of the river. Geologists, who have no faith in the favours 
 of the fabled Oreads, will merely attribute this table-land 
 to the washing away of the mountains, in the diluvian 
 period, by the River Licking, now a modest little stream, 
 which, descending from the highlands of Kentucky, 
 empties itself into the Ohio opposite Cincinnati. How- 
 ever this may be, there is not, in the whole course of the 
 river, a single spot which offers such attractions to the 
 founders of a town. 
 
 The architectural appearance of Cincinnati is very near- 
 ly the same with that of the new quarters of the English 
 towns. The houses are generally of brick, most common- 
 ly three stories high r with the windows shining with 
 cleanliness, calculated each for a single family, and regu- 
 larly placed along well paved and spacious streets, sixty 
 feet in width. Here and there the prevailing uniformity is 
 interrupted by some more imposing edifice, and there are 
 some houses of hewn stone in very good taste, real palaces 
 in miniature, with neat porticoes, inhabited by the aris- 
 tocratical portion of Mrs Trollope's hog-merchants, and sev- 
 eral very pretty mansions surrounded with gardens and 
 terraces. Then there are the common school-houses, 
 where girls and boys together learn reading, writing, 
 cyphering, and geography, under the simultaneous direc-
 
 192 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 tion of a master and mistress.* In another direction you 
 see a small, plain church, without sculpture or paintings, 
 without coloured glass or gothic arches, but snug, well 
 carpeted, and well-warmed by stoves. In Cincinnati, as 
 everywhere else in the United States, there is a great number 
 of churches ; each sect has its own, from Anglican Epis- 
 copalianism, which enlists under its banner the wealth of 
 the country, to the Baptist and Methodist sects, the reli- 
 gion of the labourers and negroes. On another side, 
 stands a huge hotel, which from its exterior you would 
 take for a royal residence, but in which, as I can testify, 
 you will not experience a princely hospitality ; or a muse- 
 um, which is merely a private speculation, as all American 
 museums are, and which consists of some few crystals, 
 some mammoth-bones, which are very abundant in the 
 United States, an Egyptian mummy, some Indian wea- 
 pons and dresses, and a half-dozen wax-figures, represent- 
 ing, for instance, Washington, General Jackson, and the 
 Indian Chiefs, Black Hawk and Tecumseh, a figure of 
 Napoleon afoot or on horseback, a French cuirass from 
 Waterloo, a collection of portraits of distinguished Ameri- 
 cans, comprising Lafayette and some of the leading men 
 of the town, another of stuffed birds, snakes preserved in 
 spirits, and particularly a large living snake, a boa con- 
 strictor, or an anaconda. One of these museums in Cin- 
 cinnati is remarkable for its collection of Indian antiqui- 
 ties, derived from the huge caves of Kentucky, or from 
 
 * According to the official report of the Trustees and visitors of the com- 
 mon schools, dated July 30, 1833, there were then in Cincinnati 6,000 chil- 
 dren between the ages of 6 and 16 years, exclusive of 230 children of colour 
 for whom there is a separate school. About 2,300 children attended the 
 common schools and 1,700 private schools. The number of common 
 schools is 18, under the care of 12 masters and 5 asssitants, 6 mis- 
 tresses and 7 assistant mistresses. The masters receive 400 dollars a year, 
 and the assistants 250; the school mistresses 216, and the assistants 168. 
 These salaries are thought to be too low.
 
 CINCINNATI. 193 
 
 the numerous mounds on the banks of the Ohio, of which 
 there were several on the site of Cincinnati.* 
 
 As for the banks they are modestly lodged at Cincinnati, 
 but a plan of a handsome edifice, worthy of their high 
 fortune, and sufficient to accommodate them all, is at pre- 
 sent under consideration. The founderies for casting 
 steam-engines, the yards for building steamboats, the noisy, 
 unwholesome, or unpleasant work-shops, are in the adjoin- 
 ing village of Fulton, in Covington or Newport on the 
 Kentucky bank of the river, or in the country. As to the 
 enormous slaughter of hogs, about 150,000 annually, and 
 the preparation of the lard, which follows, the town is not 
 in the least incommoded by it ; the whole process takes 
 place on the banks of a little stream called Deer Creek, 
 which has received the nickname of the Bloody Run, from 
 the colour of its waters during the season of the massacre, 
 or near the basins of the great canal, which extends from 
 Cincinnati towards the Maumee of Lake Erie. Cincinnati 
 has, however, no squares planted with trees in the English 
 taste, no parks nor walks, no fountains, although it would 
 be very easy to have them. It is necessary to wait for 
 the ornamental, until the taste for it prevails among the 
 inhabitants ; at present the useful occupies all thoughts. 
 Besides, all improvements require an increase of taxes, 
 and in the United States it is not easy to persuade the 
 people to submit to this. (See Note 20.) Cincinnati also 
 stands in need of some public provision for lighting the 
 streets, which this repugnance to taxes has hitherto pre- 
 vented. 
 
 * This museum has one show which I never saw anywhere else ; it is a 
 representation of the Infernal Regions, to which the young Cincinnati girls 
 resort in quest of that excitement which a comfortable and peaceful, but cold 
 and monotonous manner of life denies them. This strange spectacle seems 
 to afford a delicious agitation to their nerves, and is the principal source of 
 revenue to the museum. 
 
 25
 
 194 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 Cincinnati has had water-works, for supplying the in- 
 habitants with water, for about 20 years ; for an annual 
 rate, which amounts to about 8 or 12 dollars for a family, 
 each has a quantity amply sufficient for all its wants. A 
 steam-engine on the banks of the river raises the water to 
 a reservoir on one of the hills near the city, 300 feet high, 
 whence it is conducted in iron pipes in every direction. 
 The height of the reservoir is such that the water rises to 
 the top of every house, and fire-plugs are placed at inter- 
 vals along the streets to supply the engines in case of fire. 
 Several of the new towns in the United States have water- 
 works, and Philadelphia, among the older cities, has an 
 admirable system of works, which, owing to a series of 
 unsuccessful experiments, have cost a large sum.* At 
 this moment, a plan for supplying Boston with water is 
 under discussion, which will cost several millions, because 
 the water must be brought from a distance. New York 
 is also engaged in a similar work, the expense of which 
 will be about five millions. The Cincinnati water-works 
 have not cost much above 150,000 dollars, although they 
 have been several times completely reconstructed. It is 
 generally thought in the United States, that the water- 
 works ought to be owned by the towns, but those in Cin- 
 cinnati belong to a company, and the water-rate is, there- 
 fore, higher than in Philadelphia and Pittsburg. The 
 city has three times been in negociation for the purchase 
 of the works, and has always declined buying on advan- 
 tageous terms ; the first time the establishment was offered 
 for 35,000 dollars, and the second time for 80,000 ; the 
 
 * The water used in Philadelphia is supplied by the Schuylkill, a fall in 
 which is made to drive the pumps, by which the reservoirs are filled. The 
 Fairmount works are arranged and ornamented with much taste, and at very 
 little expense ; the ornamental part, strictly speaking, merely consists of 
 gome lawns, wooden balustrades, and two wretched statues ; yet the effect 
 is very elegant.
 
 CINCINNATI. 195 
 
 third time, 125,000 dollars were demanded, and 300,000 
 or 400,000 will finally be paid for it. In this case, as in 
 regard to lighting the streets, the principal cause of the 
 refusal of the city to buy was the unwillingness to lay 
 new taxes. 
 
 The appearance of Cincinnati as it is approached from 
 the water, is imposing, and it is still more so when it is 
 viewed from one of the neighbouring hills. The eye 
 takes in the windings of the Ohio and the course of the 
 Licking, which enters the former at right angles, the 
 steamboats that fill the port, the basin of the Miami canal, 
 with the warehouses that line it and the locks that con- 
 nect it with the river, the white-washed spinning works 
 of Newport and Covington with their tall chimnies, the 
 Federal arsenal, above which floats the starry banner, and 
 the numerous wooden spires that crown the churches. 
 On all sides the view is terminated by ranges cf hills, 
 forming an amphitheatre yet covered with the vigorous 
 growth of the primitive forest. This rich verdure is here 
 and there interrupted by country houses surrounded by 
 colonnades, which are furnished by the forest. The popu- 
 lation which occupies this amphitheatre, lives in the midst 
 of plenty ; it is industrious, sober, frugal, thirsting after 
 knowledge, and if, with a very few exceptions, it is entirely 
 a stranger to the delicate pleasures and elegant manners of 
 the refined society of our European capitals, it is equally 
 ignorant of its vices, dissipation, and follies. 
 
 At the first glance one does not perceive any difference 
 between the right and left bank of the river ; from a dis- 
 tance, the prosperity of Cincinnati seems to extend to the 
 opposite shore. This is an illusion ; on the right bank, 
 that is, in Ohio, there are none but freemen ; slavery exists 
 on the other side. You may descend the river hundreds 
 of miles, with slavery on the left and liberty on the right, 
 although it is the same soil, and equally capable of being
 
 196 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 cultivated by the white man. When you enter the Missis- 
 sippi you have slavery on both sides of you. A blind 
 carelessness, or rather a fatal weakness in the rulers, and a 
 deplorable selfishness in the people, have allowed this 
 plague to become fixed in a country where there was no 
 need of tolerating its existence. Who can tell when and 
 how, and through what sufferings, it will be possible to 
 eradicate it ? 
 
 I met with one incident in Cincinnati, which I shall 
 long remember. I had observed at the hotel table a man 
 of about the medium height, stout and muscular, and of 
 about the age of sixty years, yet with the active step and 
 lively air of youth. I had been struck with his open and 
 cheerful expression, the amenity of his manners, and a 
 certain air of command, which appeared through his plain 
 dress. " That is," said my friend, " General Harrison, 
 clerk of the Cincinnati Court of Common Pleas" " What ! 
 General Harrison of the Tippecanoe and the Thames ?" 
 "The same; the ex-general, the conqueror of Tecumseh 
 and Proctor ; the avenger of our disasters on the Raisin 
 and at Detroit ; the ex-governor of the Territory of Indi- 
 ana, the ex-senator in Congress, the ex-minister of the 
 United States to one of the South American republics. 
 He has grown old in the service of his country, he has 
 passed tAventy years of his life in those fierce wars with 
 the Indians, in which there was less glory to be won, but 
 more dangers to be encountered, than at Rivoli and Aus- 
 terlitz. He is now poor, with a numerous family, neg- 
 lected by the Federal government, although yet vigorous, 
 because he has the independence to think for himself. As 
 the Opposition is in the majority here, his friends have be- 
 thought themselves of coming to his relief by removing 
 the clerk of the court of Common Pleas, who was a Jack- 
 son man, and giving him the place, which is a lucrative 
 one, as a sort of retiring pension. His friends in the East 

 
 CINCINNATI. 197 
 
 talk of making him President of the United States. 
 Meanwhile we have made him clerk of an inferior court." 
 After a pause my informant added, " At this wretched 
 table you may see another candidate for the presidency, 
 who seems to have a better chance than General Harrison ; 
 it is Mr McLean, now one of the judges of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States." 
 
 Examples of this abandonment of men, whose career 
 has been in the highest degree honourable, are not rare in 
 the United States. I had already seen the illustrious Gal- 
 latin at New York, who, after having grown old in the 
 service of the republic, after having been for forty years a 
 legislator, a member of the cabinet, a minister abroad, 
 after having taken an active part in every wise and good 
 measure of the Federal government, was dismissed with- 
 out any provision, and would have terminated his laborious 
 career in poverty, had not his friends offered him the place 
 of president of one of the banks in New York. The 
 distress of President Jefferson in his old age is well known, 
 and that he was reduced to the necessity of asking per- 
 mission of the Virginia legislature to dispose of his estate 
 by lottery ; while President Munroe, still more destitute, 
 after having spent his patrimony in the service of the 
 State, was constrained to implore the compassion of Con- 
 gress ; and these are the men to whom their country owes 
 the invaluable acquisitions of Louisiana and Florida. The 
 system of retiring pensions is unknown in the United 
 States. No provision is made for the old age of eminent 
 men who accept the highest offices in the State, although 
 it is impossible for them to lay up anything out of their 
 comparatively moderate salaries, arid several of them have 
 seen their fortunes disappear with their health in the public 
 service. The public functionaries are treated like menial 
 servants ; the system of domestic life is such in the United 
 States, that every American, in private life, treats the
 
 198 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 humblest of his white domestics with more respect, than 
 most of them show, in public life, to officers of the highest 
 rank. On every occasion and in a thousand forms, the 
 latter are reminded, that they are nothing but dust, and 
 that a frown of the people can annihilate them. 
 
 This treatment of their public officers by the Americans 
 is the mathematical consequence of the principle of popu- 
 lar sovereignty ; but I consider it as consistent neither 
 with reason nor justice. If it is true, that nations have 
 an imprescriptible right to regulate the conduct of the 
 depositaries of power conformably to their own interests, 
 it is equally true, that men of superior abilities and worth 
 have a natural and sacred right to" be invested with high 
 powers and functions. If it is criminal to sport with the 
 welfare of the mass, it is no less so to trample under foot 
 the wise and good. And if those whom talents and zeal 
 for the public good call to important posts, are repulsed by 
 the prospect of ingratitude and contempt, to what hands 
 shall the care of the commonwealth be confided ? What 
 will then be the fate of the sovereign people ? There is 
 no less despotism in a people, who, impatient of all supe- 
 riority, repays the services of illustrious citizens only with 
 neglect,' and capriciously throws them aside, like so much 
 garbage, than in an Asiatic prince, who reduces all to the 
 same level of servitude, treats all with the same insolence 
 and brutality, and considers virtue and genius overpaid by 
 the honour of being permitted to kneel on the steps of his 
 throne. 
 
 In conformity with the prevailing ideas on the subject 
 of offices and officers, no sort of provision has been made 
 for the protection of the latter. They are removeable 
 without any kind of pretence or formality, without being 
 informed of the ground of their removal, and without any 
 reason being given to the public. In this way a terrible 
 rod of tyranny hangs over them, although under the mild
 
 CINCINNATI. 199 
 
 and moderate administration of former Presidents little use 
 was made of it ; but, since the accession of General Jack- 
 son, a regular system of removal from office has been 
 sanctioned, and office has become the reward of party- 
 services ; it has been publicly declared, that the spoils of 
 victory belong to the conquerors. President Jackson has 
 filled all the custom-houses and post offices with his crea- 
 tures, and this policy has gained over some States, counties, 
 and towns ; at every change of opinion, the State changes 
 its executive officers ; the legislators change their secre- 
 taries, printers, and even 'their messengers ; the courts, 
 their clerks ; the towns, their treasurers, their inspectors 
 pf markets, weights and measures, and even their scaven- 
 gers and watchmen. Men in office now understand, that 
 the preservation of their places and the bread of their 
 families are hazarded at every municipal, State, or Federal 
 election, according as they hold of the town, State, or 
 general government. Formerly they took no part in elec- 
 tion manoeuvres, the Presidents having expressly forbidden 
 the officers of the Federal government to meddle with 
 them ; at present, they are the most active agents in them. 
 The President has now at his command an army of 60,000 
 voters,* dependent on his will, whose interests are bound 
 up in his, and who are his forlorn hope. So true is it that 
 extremes meet, and that, by pushing to excess a single 
 principle, however true, we shall come to conclusions, 
 which, practically speaking, amount to the overthrow of 
 the principle itself. Thus by drawing out too fine the 
 
 * In a report on executive patronage lately made to the Senate by Mr 
 Calhoun, the following statement of the number of persons employed by 
 the Federal government is given : 
 
 Administrative and financial agents 12,144 Naval affairs 6,499 
 Military Service and Indian affairs 9,643 Post Office 31,917 
 
 Total 60,203
 
 200 LETTER XIX. 
 
 principle of the popular sovereignty, we may come nearer 
 and nearer to tyranny and the oppression of the people. 
 Is not this a proof that logic is not always reason, and 
 that truth is often, if not always, to be found in the har- 
 monious combinations of seemingly contradictory prin- 
 ciples ? 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 CINCINNATI. 
 
 NATCHEZ, (Miss.) JAN. 4, 1835. 
 
 CINCINNATI contains about 40,000 inhabitants, inclusive 
 of the adjoining villages ; although founded 40 years ago, 
 its rapid growth dates only about 30 years back. It seems 
 to be the rendezvous of all nations ; the Germans and 
 Irish are very numerous, and there are some Alsacians ; 
 I have often heard the harsh accents of the Rhenish French 
 in the streets. But the bulk of the population, which 
 gives its tone to all the rest, is of New England origin. 
 What makes the progress of Cincinnati more surprising is, 
 that the city is the daughter of its own works. Other 
 towns, which have sprung up in the United States in the 
 same rapid manner, have been built on shares, so to speak. 
 Lowell, for example, is an enterprise of Boston merchants, 
 who, after having raised the necessary funds, have collected 
 workmen and told them, " Build us a town." Cincinnati 
 has been gradually extended and embellished, almost 
 wholly without foreign aid. by its inhabitants, who have 
 for the most part arrived on the spot poor. The founders 
 of Cincinnati brought with them nothing but sharp-sighted,
 
 CINCINNATI. 201 
 
 wakeful, untiring industry, the only patrimony which they 
 inherited from their New England fathers, and the other 
 inhabitants have scrupulously followed their example and 
 adopted their habits. They seem to have chosen Franklin 
 for their patron-saint, and to have adopted Poor Richard's 
 maxims as a fifth gospel. 
 
 I have said that Cincinnati was admirably situated ; 
 this is true in respect of its geographical position, but, if 
 you follow the courses of the rivers on the map, and con- 
 sider the natural resources of the district, you will find 
 that there are several points on the long line of the rivers 
 of the West as advantageously placed, both for trade and 
 manufactures, and that there are some which are even 
 more favoured in these respects. Pittsburg, which has 
 within reach both coal and iron, that is to say, the daily 
 bread of industry, which stands at the head of the Ohio, 
 at the starting point of steam-navigation, at the confluence 
 of the Monongaheia and the Alleghany, coming the one 
 from the south and the other from the north ; Pittsburg, 
 which is near the great chain of lakes, appears as the pivot 
 of a vast system of roads, railroads, and canals, several of 
 "which are already completed. Pittsburg was marked out 
 by nature at once for a great manufacturing centre and a 
 great, mart of trade. Louisville, built at the falls of the 
 Ohio, at the head of navigation for the largest class of 
 boats, is a natural medium between the commerce of the 
 upper Ohio and that of the Mississippi and its tributaries. 
 In respect to manufacturing resources, Louisville is as well 
 provided as Cincinnati, and the latter, setting aside its 
 enchanting situation, seemed destined merely to become 
 the market of the fertile strip between the Great and Little 
 Miami. 
 
 But the power of men, when they agree in willing any- 
 thing and in willing it perse veringly, is sufficient to over- 
 bear and conquer that of nature. In spite of the superior 
 26
 
 202 LETTER XIX. 
 
 advantages of Louisville as an entrepot, in spite of the 
 manufacturing resources of Pittsburg, Cincinnati is able to 
 maintain a population twice that of Louisville and half as 
 large again as that of Pittsburg in a state of competence, 
 which equals, if it does not surpass, the average condition 
 of that of each of the others. The inhabitants of Cincin- 
 nati have fixed this prosperity among them, by one of those 
 instinctive views with which the sons of New England 
 are inspired by their eminently practical and calculating 
 genius. A half-word, they say, is enough for the wise, 
 but cleverer than the wisest, the Yankees understand each 
 other without speaking, and by a tacit consent direct their 
 common efforts toward the same point. To work Boston 
 fashion means, in the United States, to do anything with 
 perfect precision and without words. The object which 
 the Cincinnatians have had in view, almost from the origin 
 of their city, has been nothing less than to make it the 
 capital, or great interior mart of the West. The indirect 
 means which they have employed, have been to secure 
 the manufacture of certain articles, which, though of little 
 value separately considered, form an important aggregate 
 when taken together, and getting the start of their neigh- 
 bours, with that spirit of diligence that characterises the 
 Yankees, they have accordingly distributed the manufac- 
 ture of these articles among themselves. This plan has 
 succeeded. 
 
 Thus with the exception of the pork trade, one is sur- 
 prised not to see any branch of industry carried on on the 
 great scale of the manufacturing towns of England and 
 France. The Cincinnatians make a variety of household 
 furniture and utensils, agricultural and mechanical imple- 
 ments and machines, wooden clocks, and a thousand 
 objects of daily use and consumption, soap, candles, paper, 
 leather, &c., for which there is an indefinite demand 
 throughout the nourishing and rapidly growing States of 
 

 
 CINCINNATI. 203 
 
 the West, and also in the new States of the Southwest, 
 which are wholly devoted to agriculture, and in which, on 
 account of the existence of slavery, manufactures cannot 
 be carried on. Most of these articles are of ordinary 
 quality ; the furniture, for instance, is rarely such as would 
 be approved by Parisian taste, but it is cheap and neat, 
 just what is wanted in a new country, where, with the 
 exception of a part of the South, there is a general ease 
 and but little wealth, and where plenty and comfort are 
 more generally known than the little luxuries of a more 
 refined society. The prosperity of Cincinnati, therefore, 
 rests upon the sure basis of the prosperity of the West, 
 upon the supply of articles of the first necessity to the 
 bulk of the community ; a much more solid foundation 
 than the caprice of fashion, upon which, nevertheless, the 
 branches of industry most in favour with us, depend. 
 The intellectual also receives a share of attention ; in the 
 first place, there is a large type-foundery in Cincinnati, 
 which supplies the demand of the whole West, and of that 
 army of newspapers that is printed in it. According to 
 the usual English or American mode of proceeding, the 
 place of human labour is supplied as much as possible by 
 machinery, and I have seen several little contrivances here, 
 that are not probably to be found in the establishments of 
 the Royal Press or of the Didots. Then the printing- 
 presses are numerous, and they issue nothing but publica- 
 tions in general demand, such as school-books, and religious 
 books, and newspapers. By means of this variety of 
 manufactures, which, taken separately appear of little con- 
 sequence, Cincinnati has taken a stand, from which it will 
 be very difficult to remove her, for, in this matter, priority 
 of occupation is no trifling advantage. The country trader, 
 who keeps an assortment of everything vendible, is sure 
 to find almost everything he wants in Cincinnati, and he, 
 therefore, goes thither in preference to any other place in
 
 204 LETTER XIX. 
 
 order to lay in his stock of goods. Cincinnati is thus in 
 fact the great central mart of the West ; a great quantity 
 and variety of produce and manufactured articles find a 
 vent here, notwithstanding the natural superiority of sev- 
 eral other sites, either in regard to the extent of water- 
 communication or mineral resources. 
 
 M. Fourrier has characterised the spirit of the 19th cen- 
 tury by the term industrial feudalism. The human race, 
 according to some, has thrown off one yoke only to bear 
 another, less burdensome perhaps, but also less noble. 
 The warlike lords of the Middle Ages have passed away ? 
 but the industrial lords have come to take their place, the 
 princes of manufactures, banks, and commerce. These 
 new masters will embitter the life of the poor with less 
 distress and privation, but they will also shed less glory 
 upon it. They will increase the body's pittance, but 
 diminish the soul's. At the sight of the great manufacto- 
 ries of England and some of those of the European con- 
 tinent, of those which are multiplying so rapidly in New 
 England, in that wonderful creation the city of Lowell, 
 one is tempted to think that the industrial feudalism is 
 already established in the former, and is creeping beneath 
 the democratic institutions, like the snake under the grass, 
 in the latter. Those who do not believe that the human 
 race can go backward, and who prefer to rock themselves 
 in the cradle of hope, rather than to yield to flat despair, 
 while they admit the existence of this tendency of the 
 age, console themselves by the contemplation of its other 
 characteristic features, at the head of which they place 
 the general spirit of emancipation, which breaks down all 
 obstacles in its way. If in England, for instance, there 
 are, in the factories, a thousand germs of despotism, there 
 are, in the working classes, a thousand germs of resistance, 
 in the population a thousand germs of liberalism ; there 
 are Trades' Unions, there are radicals : neither of these
 
 CINCINNATI. 205 
 
 opposite forces alone will decide the destinies of the fu- 
 ture. From their opposing impulses will result a single 
 force, different from both, yet partaking of both. The 
 force of emancipation will make what to some seems 
 about to become feudalism, simply patronage. 
 
 Patronage has not finished its career upon the earth ; it 
 will endure while Providence shall continue to cast men in 
 different moulds ; it will subsist for the good of the weak 
 and the poor, and for that of the class of men, so numer- 
 ous in southern Europe, for example, who require the sup- 
 port of somebody more powerful than themselves. But it 
 will be modified in character, growing successively less 
 and less violent, and more and more mild. The inferior 
 has been a slave, a serf, a paid freeman ; he may in time 
 become an associate or partner without ceasing to be an 
 inferior. However this may be, there is no germ of in- 
 dustrial feudalism in Cincinnati, there are no great factories 
 or work-shops. Mechanical industry is subdivided there, 
 pretty much as the soil is amongst us ; each head of a 
 family, with his sons and some newly arrived emigrants 
 as assistants and servants, has his domain in this great 
 field. Cincinnati is, therefore, as republican in its indus- 
 trial organisation, as in its political. This subdivision of 
 manufactures has hitherto been attended with no inconve- 
 nience, because in the vast West, whose growth is visible 
 to the eye, the production cannot at present keep pace with 
 the consumption. But how will it be in a century, or 
 perhaps in fifty years ? Will not the condition of mechan- 
 ical industry undergo some great change, or rather will 
 not the whole of this vast region undergo a complete 
 change of character and condition, which will involve a 
 reorganisation of the industrial system ? 
 
 The moral aspect of Cincinnati is delightful in the eyes 
 of him who prefers work to every thing else, and with 
 whom work can take the place of every thing else. But
 
 206 . LETTER XIX. 
 
 whoever has a taste for pleasure and display, whoever needs 
 occasional relaxation from business, in gaiety and amuse- 
 ment, would find this beautiful city, with its picturesque 
 environs, an insupportable residence. It would be still 
 more so for a man of leisure, desirous of devoting a large 
 
 / o o 
 
 part of his time to the cultivation of the fine arts and the 
 rest to pleasure. For such a man, indeed, it would not 
 be possible to live here ; he would find himself denounced 
 irom political considerations, because men of loisure are 
 looked upon in the United States as so many stepping- 
 stones to aristocracy, and anathematised by religion, for the 
 various sects, however much they may differ on other 
 points, all agree in condemning pleasure, luxury, gallantry, 
 the fine arts themselves. Now the United States are not 
 like some countries in Europe, particularly France, where 
 religion and the pulpit can be braved with impunity. 
 Hemmed in by the laborious habits of the country, by 
 political notions, and by religion, a man must either resign 
 himself to the same mode of life with the mass, or seek a 
 soil less unfriendly to his tastes in the great cities of New 
 York, Philadelphia, or New Orleans, or even in Europe. 
 There is, therefore, no such thing in Cincinnati as a class 
 of men of leisure, living without any regular profession 
 on their patrimony, or on the wealth acquired by their 
 own enterprise in early life, although there are many per- 
 sons of opulence, having one hundred thousand dollars and 
 upwards. I met a young man there, the future heir of a 
 large fortune, who, after having been educated at West 
 Point and received a commission, had retired from the ser- 
 vice in order to live at home. Wearied out with his solitary 
 leisure, burdened with the weight of his own person, he 
 could find no other relief than to open a fancy-goods 
 shop. 
 
 Every where in the United States where there are no 
 slaves, and out of the large towns of the sea-coast, a strict 

 
 CINCINNATI. 207 
 
 watch is kept up in regard to persons of leisure, obliging 
 those who might be seduced by a taste for this kind of 
 life to fall into the ranks and work, at least until age 
 makes repose necessary. Public opinion is on the lookout 
 to banish any habits of dissipation, however innocent, that 
 might get a footing in society, and make a life of leisure 
 tolerable. Religious and philanthropical societies, institu- 
 ted under various names, take upon themselves the task of 
 enforcing the decrees of public opinion ; like vigilant sen- 
 tinels, they compel a rigid observance of the austerities, or 
 if you choose the ennuis, of Sunday, labour to suppress 
 intemperance and gaming, the spirit of which, if once 
 diffused among a people so wholly devoted to money- 
 making, might lead to the most fatal consequences. These 
 societies and committees pursue their task with a more 
 than British perseverance, and sometimes with a puritani- 
 cal fanaticism. When Mr John Quincy Adams became 
 President, he had a billiard-table placed in the President's 
 House, and such is here the real or affected abhorrence of 
 every thing called a game, that this billiard-table was ac- 
 tually one of the arguments against the re-election of Mr 
 Adams. " It is a scandal, the abomination of desolation," 
 Avas the general cry. Mr Adams, whose private character 
 is above suspicion, was, if we must believe the Opposition 
 journals of the day, a teacher of immorality, because he 
 had a billiard-table in his house, and General Jackson has 
 doubtless caused that scandalous piece of furniture to be 
 broken up and burnt, since he has become master of the 
 White House. Any where else this rigour would be called 
 intolerance, inquisition ; here it is submitted to without a 
 murmur, and few persons are really annoyed by it, or show 
 that they are. The American can support a constant and 
 unrelaxing devotion to labour ; he does not feel the need of 
 amusement and recreation. The silence and retirement of 
 his Sunday seem to be a more effectual relaxation for him, 

 
 208 LETTER XIX. 
 
 than the noisy gaiety of our festivals ; one might even 
 say that he was" destitute of the sense of pleasure. All 
 his faculties and energies are admirably and vigorously 
 combined for production ; he wants those without which 
 pleasure is not enjoyment, and amusement is but a pain- 
 ful effort ; and, between these two kinds of work, he 
 would of course prefer that which is gainful, to that which 
 is expensive. 
 
 Such a social organisation is the very best for a pioneer 
 people. Without this devotion to business, without this 
 constant direction of the energies of the mind to useful 
 enterprises, without this indifference to pleasure, without 
 those political and religious notions which imperiously re- 
 press all passions but those whose objects are business, 
 production, and gain, can any one suppose that the Amer- 
 icans would ever have achieved their great industrial con- 
 quests ? With any other less exclusive system, they would 
 yet, perhaps, be meditating the passage over the Allegha- 
 nies. Instead of having that great domain of the West, 
 immense in its extent and resources, already cleared and 
 cultivated, furrowed with roads and dotted over with farms, 
 they would probably be still confined to the sandy strip 
 that borders the Atlantic. It must be allowed that this ardent 
 and entire devotion to business gives the nation a strange 
 aspect in the eyes of a European : And this explains the 
 fact that the Americans have found so little favour with 
 most foreigners who have visited their country. But, in 
 return, they are sure of the gratitude of that innumerable 
 posterity for whom they are preparing with such energy 
 and sagacity an abode of plenty, a land of promise. This 
 posterity, it is said, will change the habits of their fathers, 
 will adopt new tastes, and even new institutions. So be 
 it ! It is of little consequence whether the Americans of 
 the 20th or 21st century, shall retain the national charac- 
 ter, customs, and laws of the Americans of the 19th.
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 209 
 
 But the more interesting consideration is, whether the 
 Americans of our day do not fulfil, as perfectly as human 
 nature is capable of doing, the mission which Providence 
 has entrusted to them, that of acting as a nation of pio- 
 neers and subduers of the forest ; and if they do not de- 
 serve to be excused, like all nations and individuals, for 
 having the defects inherent in their good qualities. The 
 question thus stated will be easily answered by every 
 one who sets any value on the interests and welfare of the 
 future. 
 
 LETTER ' XX. 
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 
 
 NEW ORLEANS, JAN. 8, 1835. 
 
 ONE of the points in which modern society differs most 
 from the ancient, is, certainly, the facility of travelling. 
 Formerly it was possible only for a patrician to travel ; it 
 was "necessary to be rich even to travel like a philosopher. 
 Merchants moved in caravans, paying tribute to the Be- 
 doweens of the desert, to the Tartars of the steppes, to the 
 chieftains perched, like eagles, in castles built in the moun- 
 tain passes. Instead of the English stage-coach, or the 
 post-chaise, rattling at high speed over the paved road, 
 they had the old Asiatic litter or palanquin, still preserved 
 in Spanish America, or the camel, the ship of the desert, 
 or four bullocks yoked to the slow wagon, or for the com- 
 mon citizens or the iron warriors, the horse ; and instead 
 of those sumptuous steam-packets, genuine floating palaces, 
 the small and frail bark, pursued by robbers on the rivers 
 27
 
 210 LETTER XX. 
 
 and by pirates by sea, the sight of which extorted from 
 the Epicurean Horace the exclamation of terror, 
 
 Illi robur et aes triplex Circa pectus erat 
 
 The roads were then rough and narrow paths, rendered 
 dangerous by the violence of men, or by the monsters of 
 the forest, or by precipices. A long train of luggage, pro- 
 visions, servants, and guards, was necessary, and from time 
 to time the traveller reposed himself with some hereditary 
 friend of his family, for there were then no comfortable 
 hotels, in which he can now procure all he needs for 
 money, and command the attentive services of officious 
 attendants. If there were any place of shelter, it was 
 some filthy den, like the caravanserais of the East, wretch- 
 ed, naked, and comfortless, where he found nothing but 
 water and a roof, pr like the inns of Spain and South 
 America, which are a happy mean between a caravanserai 
 and a stable. The great bulk of mankind, slaves in fact 
 and in name, were then attached to the glebe, chained to 
 the soil by the difficulty of locomotion. 
 
 To improve the means of communication, then, is to 
 promote a real, positive, and practical liberty ; it is to ex- 
 tend to all the members of the human family the power 
 of traversing and turning to account the globe, which has 
 been given to them as their patrimony ; it is to increase 
 the rights and privileges of the greatest number, as truly 
 and as amply as could be done by electoral laws ; I go 
 further, it is to establish equality and democracy. The 
 effect of the most perfect system of transportation is to 
 reduce the distance not only between different places, but 
 between different classes. Where the rich and the great 
 travel only with a pompous retinue, while the poor man 7 
 who goes to the next village, drags himself singly along 
 in mud and sand, over rocks and through thickets, the 
 word equality is a mockery and a falsehood, and aristocracy
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 211 
 
 stares you in the face. In India and China, in the Ma- 
 hometan countries, in half- Arabian Spain and her former 
 American colonies, it matters little whether the govern- 
 ment is called republic, empire, or limited monarchy ; the 
 peasant and the labourer cannot there persuade himself 
 that he is the equal of the soldier, the brahmin, the man- 
 darin, the pacha, or the noble, whose retinue runs over 
 him, or covers him with mud. Spite of himself, he is 
 filled with awe at its approach, and servilely bends before 
 it as it passes him. In Great Britain, on the contrary, in 
 spite of the wealth and the great privileges of the nobility, 
 the mechanic and the labourer, who can go to the office 
 and get a ticket for the railroad cars, if they have a few 
 shillings in their pockets, and who have the right, if they 
 will pay for it, of sitting in the same vehicle, on the same 
 seat with the baronet or the peer and duke, feel their 
 dignity as men, and touch, as it were, the fact, that there 
 is not an impassable gulf between them and the nobility. 
 
 These considerations would make me slow to believe in 
 the tyrannical projects of a government which should 
 devote itself zealously to the task of opening roads through 
 the country, and diminishing the time and expense of 
 transportation. Is it not true that ideas, as well as goods, 
 circulate along the great highways, the canals, and the 
 rivers, and that every travelling clerk is more or less a 
 missionary ? Those who are possessed with the retrograde 
 spirit, are fully convinced of this fact ; they favour no 
 projects of internal improvement ; they fear an engineer 
 almost as much as they do a publisher of Voltaire. As it 
 is undeniable that one of the first railroads in Europe was 
 constructed in the Austrian empire, as the imperial gov- 
 ernment has opened many fine roads from one end of its 
 possessions to the other, and as it is encouraging the intro- 
 duction of steamboats on the Danube, I may venture to 
 conclude that Von Metternich deserves a better reputation
 
 212 LETTER XX. 
 
 than he enjoys, on this side the Rhine. You know, on 
 the other hand, that during the short ministry of M. de 
 Labourdonnaye, in 1829, the surveys and plans of various 
 roads in Vendee disappeared from the archives, and have 
 never since been found. Only a few months ago, in 
 Puebla, one of the free and sovereign States of the Mexican 
 confederacy, which, however, enjoys a very high reputa- 
 tion for ignorance and bigotry, the representatives of the 
 people, animated with a holy wrath against those ruthless 
 unbelievers (mostly foreigners), who have pushed the sacri- 
 legious spirit of innovation so far as to set up a line of 
 stage-coaches betewen Vera Cruz and Mexico, and to 
 repair the great road between the two cities, imposed an 
 annual tax of 135,000 dollars upon them, and prohibited 
 their taking any tolls within the limits of the State. 
 
 There is a region where, by simply perfecting the means 
 of water-transportation, a revolution has been produced, 
 the consequences of which on the balance of power in 
 the New World are incalculable. It is the great Valley of 
 the Mississippi, which had, indeed, been conquered from 
 the wild beasts and Red Skins previous to the invention 
 of Fulton, but which, without the labours of his genius, 
 would never have been covered with rich and populous 
 States. After the conquest of Canada had put an end to 
 the brilliant but sterile exploits of the French on the Ohio 
 and the Mississippi, the Anglo-Americans, then subjects of 
 the king of Great Brirain, began to spread themselves over 
 the Valley. The first settlers seated themselves in Keri- 
 tucky, and occupied the soil for agricultural purposes. In 
 a short time they had effaced from its surface the slight 
 traces, which the French, almost exclusively engaged in 
 hunting, had left of their passage. Instead of the little 
 and restless, but indolent race produced by a cross of 
 French with Indian blood, the new comers, avoiding all 
 mixture with the natives, produced a laborious and ener-
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 213 
 
 getic population, which, on this fertile soil, and like its 
 natural productions, acquired those gigantic proportions, 
 which characterise the Western- Virginian, the Kentuckian, 
 and the Tennesseean, no less than the trees of their forests. 
 Without ever laying aside their rifles, which forty years 
 ago were carried to divine service in Cincinnati itself, they 
 cleared and brought under the plough, the fertile tracts, 
 which were converted into fine farms for themselves and 
 their rapidly multiplying families. They had to pass 
 days of terrour and distress, and in many an encounter with 
 the Indians, from whom they conquered the wilderness, 
 more than one husband, and more than one father, fell 
 under the balls of the Red men, were dragged into the 
 most wretched captivity, or underwent the horrid torments 
 of the stake. The name of Blue Licks still sounds in 
 the ears of Kentucky, like that of Waterloo in ours. Be- 
 fore the decisive victory of the Fallen Timber, gained by 
 General Wayne, two American armies, under the command 
 of Generals Harmer and Saint Clair, were successively 
 defeated with great slaughter. The story of this long 
 struggle between the whites and the Red men is still re- 
 peated in the bar-rooms of the West. 
 
 .In 1811, although the formidable Tecumseh and his 
 brother the Prophet, had not yet been conquered by Gen- 
 eral Harrison, the American had extended his undisputed 
 empire over the most fertile districts of the West. Here 
 and there villages had been built ; and the forest every 
 where showed clearings, in the midst of which stood the 
 log-house of some squatter or some more legal proprietor. 
 On the left bank of the Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee 
 had been erected into States, and Western Virginia had 
 been settled. A current of emigration had transported the 
 industrious sons of New England upon the right bank of 
 the river, and by their energy the State of Ohio had been 
 founded, and already contained nearly 250,000 inhabi-
 
 214 LETTER XX. 
 
 tants. Indiana and Illinois, then mere Territories, gave 
 fair promise of the future. The treaty of 1803 had added 
 to the Union our Louisiana, in which one State and several 
 Territories, with a total population of 160,000 souls had 
 already been organised. The whole West, at that time, had 
 a population of nearly a million and a half : Pittsburg and 
 Cincinnati were considerable towns. The West had, then, 
 made a rapid progress, but separated as it was from the 
 Gulf of Mexico by the circuitous windings and the gloomy 
 swamps of the Mississippi, from the eastern cities by the 
 seven or eight ridges that form the Alleghany Mountains, 
 destitute of outlets and markets, its further progress seem- 
 ed to be arrested. The embryo could grow but slowly 
 and painfully, for want of the proper channels through 
 which the sources of life might circulate. 
 
 At present, routes of communication have been made 
 or are making from all sides, connecting the rivers of the 
 West with the Eastern coast, on which stand the great 
 marts, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Rich- 
 mond, and Charleston. At that time, there was not one 
 which was practicable through the whole year, and there 
 was not capital enough to undertake one. All the com- 
 merce of the West was carried on by the Ohio and the 
 Mississippi, which is, indeed, still, and, probably, always 
 will be, the most economical route for bulky objects. The 
 western boatmen descended the rivers with their corn and 
 salt-meat in flat boats, like the Seine coal-boats ; the goods 
 of Europe and the produce of the Antilles, were slowly 
 transported up the rivers by the aid of the oar and the 
 sail, the voyage consuming at the least one hundred days, 
 and sometimes two hundred. One hundred days is nearly 
 the length of a voyage from New York by the Cape of 
 Good Hope to Canton ; in the same space of time France 
 was twice conquered, once by the allies and once by Na- 
 poleon. The commerce of the West, was, therefore,
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 215 
 
 necessarily very limited, and the inhabitants, separated 
 from the rest of the world, had all the rudeness of the 
 forest. It was in this period and this state of manners, 
 that the popular saying, which describes the Kentuckian 
 as half horse, half alligator, had its origin. The num- 
 ber of boats, which made the voyage up and down once a 
 year, did not exceed ten, measuring on an average about 
 100 tons ; other small boats, averaging about 30 tons 
 measurement, carried on the trade between different points 
 on the rivers, beside which there were numerous flat 
 boats, which did not make a return voyage. Freight from 
 New Orleans to Louisville or Cincinnati was six, seven, 
 and even nine cents a pound. At present the passage 
 from Louisville to New Orleans is made in about 8 or 9 
 days, and the return voyage in 10 or 12, and freight is 
 often less than half a cent a pound from the latter to the 
 former. 
 
 In 1811, the first steamboat in the West, built by Ful- 
 ton, started from Pittsburg for New Orleans ; it bore the 
 name of the latter city. But such are the difficulties in 
 the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, and such was 
 the Imperfection of the first boats, that it was nearly six 
 years before a steamboat ascended from New Orleans, and 
 then not to Pittsburg, but to Louisville, 600 miles below 
 it. The first voyage was made in twentyfive days, and 
 it caused a great stir in the West ; a public dinner was 
 given to Captain Shreve, who had solved the problem. 
 Then and not before, was the revolution completed in the 
 condition of the West, and the hundred-day boats were 
 supplanted. In 1818, the number of steamboats was 20, 
 making an aggregate of 3,642 tons ; in 1819 the whole num- 
 ber that had been built was 40, of which 33 were still run- 
 ning ; in 1821, there were 72 in actual service. In that year 
 the Car of Commerce, Captain Pierce, made the passage from 
 New Orleans to Shawneetown, a little below Louisville,
 
 216 LETTER XX. 
 
 in 10 days. In 1825, after fourteen years of trials and 
 experiments, the proper proportion between the machinery 
 and the boats was finally settled (See Note 21). In 1827, 
 the Tecumseh ascended from New Orleans to Louisville 
 in eight days and two hours. In 1829, the number of 
 boats was 200, with a total tonnage of 35,000 tons ; in 
 1832, there were 220 boats making an aggregage of 
 40,000 tons, and at present there are 240, measuring 
 64,000 tons. According to statements made to me by 
 experienced and well-informed persons, the whole amount 
 of merchandise annually transported by them between 
 New Orleans and the upper country, is at least 140,000 
 tons. The trade between the basins of the Ohio, the 
 Tennessee, and the Upper Mississippi, not included in this 
 amount, forms another considerable mass. To have an 
 idea of the whole extent of the commerce on the western 
 waters, we must also add from 160,000 to 180,000 tons of 
 provisions and various objects, which go down in flat-boats. 
 This amount is, indeed, enormous, and yet it is probably 
 but a trifle compared with what will be transported on the 
 rivers of the Wep in 20 years from this time ; for on the 
 Erie canal, which, compared with the Mississippi is a 
 line of but secondary importance, and at a single point, 
 Utica, 420,000 tons passed in a period of seven months 
 and a half. 
 
 Such is the influence of routes of communication on 
 which cheapness is combined with dispatch.* In Mexico, 
 where nature has done so much, and where, in return, 
 man has done so little, in those countries where natural 
 resources are, perhaps, tenfold greater than those of the 
 United States, but where man is a hundred fold less active 
 
 * Freight on our canals is only about half as high as in the United States ; 
 but this advantage is counterbalanced by the excessive slowness of our 
 movements.
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 217 
 
 and industrious, transportation is effected wholly on the 
 backs of mules or men, even in the plain country. The 
 annual amount of the transportation from Vera Cruz, the 
 principal port, to Mexico, the capital of the country, does 
 not, therefore, amount to 6,000 tons, and the descending 
 freight is much less. The western steamboats look very 
 much like the Vigier baths on the Seine ; they are huge 
 houses of two stories.* Two large chimneys of columnar 
 form vomit forth torrents of smoke and thousands of 
 sparks ; from a third a whitish cloud breaks forth with a 
 loud noise ; this is the steam-pipe. In the interior they 
 have that coquettish air that characterises American vessels 
 in general ; the cabins are showily furnished, and make a 
 very pretty appearance. The little green blinds and the 
 snugly fitted windows, pleasingly contrasting with the 
 white walls, would have made Jean-Jacques sigh with 
 envy. 
 
 The more ordinary capacity is from 200 to 300 tons, but 
 many of them measure from 500 to 600 ; their length 
 varies from 100 to 150 feet. Notwithstanding their dimen- 
 sions and the elegance with which they are fitted up, they 
 cost but little, the largest boats being built for about 40,000 
 dollars, including their engines and furniture.f A very 
 nice boat 100 feet long, of the legal measurement of 100 
 tons but carrying 150, only costs from 7,000 to 8,000 
 dollars. It is estimated that the large boats cost about 100 
 dollars a ton, legal measurement, and the small ones, 80 
 dollars. But if these elegant craft cost little, they do not 
 
 * The Homer, a noted boat built by Mr Beckwith of Louisville, one of 
 the most skilful builders in the West, has a third story. 
 
 t A boat of the same dimensions would cost nearly 100,000 dollars in 
 France ; this is owing to the low price of the timber, the coarseness of the 
 steam-engines, which, on account of the cheapness of fuel, there would be 
 no advantage in making with more nicety, and the skill of the mechanics ; 
 the Americans excel in working in wood. 
 
 28
 
 218 LETTER XX. 
 
 last long ; whatever care is taken in the choice of mate- 
 rials and for the preservation ef the boat, it is rare that they 
 wear more than four or five years. An old captain, lately 
 giving me an account of a boat about the construction of 
 which he had taken great pains, told me, with a deep sigh, 
 that "she died at three years." The magnificent vegeta- 
 tion of the West, those thrifty, tall, straight trees, by the 
 side of which our European oaks would appear like dwarfs, 
 growing rapidly on the thick layer of soil deposited by 
 the great rivers of the West in the diluvian period of 
 geologists, last just in proportion to the time occupied by 
 their growth. And in this case, as in regard to human 
 glory and the splendour of empires, the rule holds good, 
 that time respects only what he has himself founded. 
 
 The number of passengers which these boats carry, is 
 very considerable ; they are almost always crowded, al- 
 though there are some which have two hundred beds. I 
 have myself been in one of these boats which could ac- 
 commodate only 30 cabin passengers, with 72. A river 
 voyage was formerly equivalent to an Argonautic expedi- 
 tion, at present it is one of the easiest things in the world. 
 The rate of fare is low ; you go from Pittsburg to New 
 Orleans for 50 dollars, all found, and from Louisville to 
 New Orleans for 25 dollars. It is still lower for the boat- 
 men, who run down the river in flat boats and return by 
 the steamers ; there are sometimes 500 or 600 of them in 
 a separate part of the boat, where they have a shelter, a 
 berth, and fire, and pay from 4 to 6 dollars for the passage 
 from New Orleans to Louisville : they are, however, obliged 
 to help take in wood. The rapidity with which these 
 men return, has contributed not a little to the extension of 
 the commerce of the West : they can now make three or 
 four trips a year instead of one, an important consideration 
 in a country where there is a deficiency of hands. On 
 the downward voyage, their place is occupied by horses
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 219 
 
 and cattle, which are sent to the South for sale, and by 
 slaves, human cattle destined to enrich the soil of the 
 South with their sweat, to supply the loss of hands on the 
 sugar plantations of Louisiana, or to make the fortune of 
 some cotton planters. Virginia is the principal seat of this 
 traffic, " the native land of Washington, Jefferson and 
 Madison, having become," as one of her sons sorrowfully 
 observed to me, "the Guinea of the United States." 
 
 Excellent as these boats are, great as is the service they 
 render America, when the first feeling of curiosity is once 
 satisfied, a long confinement in one of them has little that 
 is attractive for a person of a cultivated -mind and refined 
 manners. There are few Europeans of the polished classes 
 of society, and even few Americans of the higher class in 
 the Eastern cities, who, on escaping from one of these 
 floating barracks, would not feel disposed, under the first 
 impulse of ill humour, to attest the correctness of Mrs 
 Trollope's views of western society. There is in . the 
 West a real equality, not merely an equality to talk about, 
 an equality on paper ; everybody that has on a decent coat 
 is a gentleman : every gentleman is as good as any other, 
 and does not conceive that he should incommode himself 
 to. oblige his equal. He is occupied entirely with himself, 
 and cares nothing for others ; he expects no attention from 
 his neighbour, and does not suspect that his neighbour can 
 desire any from him. In this rudeness, however, there is 
 not a grain of malice ; there is on the contrary an appear- 
 ance of good humour that disarms you. The man of the 
 West is rude, but not sullen or quarrelsome. He is sensi- 
 tive, proud of himself, proud of his country, and he is so 
 to excess, but without silliness or affectation. Remove 
 the veil of vanity in which he wraps himself, and you 
 will find him ready to oblige you and even generous. He 
 is a great calculator, and yet he is not cold, and he is capa- 
 ble of enthusiasm. He loves money passionately, yet he
 
 220 LETTER XX. 
 
 is not avaricious ; he is often prodigal. He is rough be- 
 cause he has not had time to soften his voice, and cultivate 
 the graces of manner. But if he appears ill-bred, it is not 
 from choice, for he aspires to be considered a man of breed- 
 ing ; but he has been obliged to occupy himself much 
 more with the cultivation of the earth, than of himself. 
 It is perfectly natural that the first generation in the West 
 should bear the impress of the severe labours it has so 
 energetically and perseveringly pursued. If these reflec- 
 tions, however, are consoling for the future, they cannot 
 give to a life aboard the Ohio and Mississippi steamboats any 
 charms for him who sets value on amiable and engaging 
 manners. 
 
 Besides, the voyage on the Mississippi is more dangerous 
 than a passage across the ocean ; I do not mean merely 
 from the United States to Europe, but from Europe to 
 China. In the former, you are exposed to the risk of ex- 
 plosions, and of fire, and in ascending, to that of running 
 against snags and planters. Then there is the danger of 
 your boat falling afoul of another, running in an opposite 
 direction, in a fog, to say nothing of the inconvenience of 
 getting aground on sand-bars. Add to these things the 
 monotonous aspect of the country on the river, the soli- 
 tude of its flat and muddy banks, the filthy appearance of 
 its yellow and turbid waters, the strange habits of most of 
 the travellers crowded into the same cage with yourself, 
 and you may conceive, that, in course of time, such a 
 situation becomes extremely unpleasant. The Louisiana 
 planters, therefore, who go North in the hot season in 
 search of a fresher and purer air than that of New Orleans, 
 make their annual migrations by sea, aboard the fine 
 packet-ships, which run regularly between that city and 
 New York. Explosions of the boilers are frequent, either 
 on account of the ignorance and want of skill of the engi- 
 neers, or on account of the defective nature of the boilers
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 221 
 
 themselves, and they are always attended with serious 
 injury, because the boats are so much crowded with pas- 
 sengers. A few days ago, sixty persons were killed and 
 wounded aboard a single boat, but these accidents do not 
 occur in well managed boats, in which no unseasonable 
 economy has been practised in the purchase of the 
 machinery and the wages of the engineers.* Some 
 law containing provisions similar to those in force in 
 France, is required here, but in order to be practicable, it 
 should be made to apply to the whole Valley, which would 
 only be the case with an act of Congress. Public opinion, 
 however, would not permit Congress to meddle with the 
 matter, and the cry of Federal encroachment on State 
 rights would be raised at once. One State only, Louisiana, 
 has passed a law on the subject, but it is very defective, 
 and I do not suppose that it is enforced. Preventive mea- 
 sures are what is wanted, inspection of the machinery and 
 licensing of competent engineers, while the law of Loui- 
 siana only provides for the punishment of the captain on 
 board whose boat an accident happens, with a special pen- 
 alty in case he should be engaged in any game of hazard, 
 at the time of the accident. 
 
 There have been many accidents by fire in the steamers, 
 and many persons have perished in this way, although the 
 river is not very wide. The Brandywine was burnt near 
 Memphis, in 1832, and every soul on board, to the number 
 of 110, was lost. The Americans show a singular indif- 
 ference in regard to fires, not only in the steamboats, but 
 also in their houses ; they smoke without the least concern 
 in the midst of the half open cotton-bales, with which a 
 boat is loaded ; they ship gunpowder with no more pre- 
 caution than if it were so much maize or salt pork, and 
 
 * A good engineer gets about 100 dollars a month in the large boats, and 
 there are two to a boat. In France the wages of the same man would be 
 from 20 to 25 dollars a month.
 
 222 LETTER XX. 
 
 leave objects packed up in straw right in the torrent of 
 sparks that issue from the chimneys. The accidents 
 caused by the trunks of trees in the bed of the rirer, called 
 logs, snags, sawyers, or planters, according to their position, 
 have been very numerous ; attempts have been made to 
 prevent this class of disasters, by strengthening the bows, 
 and by bulk-heads which double the hull in that part. 
 The Federal government has two snag-boats, constructed 
 with great ingenuity, which are employed in removing 
 these obstructions from the rivers, but the bordering States, 
 whose taxes are very light, have contributed nothing to- 
 wards these objects. The machinery of the Heliopolis and 
 Archimedes, contrived by Captain Shreve, has done much 
 toward clearing the channel, but there is still much to be 
 done. 
 
 The chances of accident might be diminished in vari- 
 ous ways, by well-directed measures, and at a moderate 
 expense. The character of the river is now well under- 
 stood, and there are many engineers in the United States, 
 who can manage the Great Father of Waters. Unluckily 
 the Federal government, which does not know what to do 
 with its money, (for it has now on hand a surplus of eleven 
 millions,) is checked by a doctrine with which, one cannot 
 tell why, the democratic party have become possessed, and 
 which forbids the general government from engaging in 
 public works within the limits of the individual States. 
 Thus, although the whole Union is interested in the im- 
 provement of the navigation of the western rivers, the 
 Federal government does not venture to undertake it with 
 energy and on a liberal scale. General Jackson's prede- 
 cessor, Mr Adams, was a warm friend to the action of the 
 government in internal improvements. He thought, like 
 Mr Clay and other men of superior abilities, that the pro- 
 gress of the young States of the West would be very 
 much accelerated, to the advantage of the whole Union,
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 223 
 
 if the central government would undertake to execute, in 
 whole or in part, a system of public works of general 
 interest. But one of the watchwords of the opponents 
 of Mr Adams was, No Internal Improvements ! and the 
 very States which would have been most immediately 
 benefited by it, rallied to this cry. So utterly can party 
 spirit blind the most clear-sighted of men ! 
 
 If accidents of so serious a nature succeeded each other 
 with such frequency in Europe, there would be a general 
 outcry. The police and the legislative power would vie 
 with each other in their efforts to put a stop to them. 
 Steamboats would become the terror of travellers, the 
 public would abandon them, and they would be left 
 deserted on the rivers. The effect would be the same, in 
 a degree, around the large eastern cities, because society 
 there is beginning to be regularly organised, and a man's 
 life counts for something. In the West, the flood of emi- 
 grants, descending from the Alleghanies, rolls swelling and 
 eddying over the plains, sweeping before it the Indian, the 
 buffalo, and the bear. At its approach the gigantic forests 
 bow themselves before it, as the dry grass of the prairies 
 disappears before the flames. It is for civilisation, what 
 the hosts of Ghengis Khan and Attila were for barbarism ; 
 it is an invading army, and its law is the law of armies. 
 The mass is everything, the individual nothing. Wo to 
 him who trips and falls ! he is trampled down and crushed 
 under foot. Wo to him who finds himself on the edge of 
 a precipice ! The impatient crowd, eager to push forward, 
 throngs him, forces him over, and he is at once forgotten, 
 without even a half-suppressed sigh for his funeral oration. 
 Help yourself! is the watchword. The life of the gen- 
 uine American is the soldier's life ; like the soldier he is 
 encamped, and that, in a flying camp, here to-day, fifteen 
 hundred miles off in a month. It is a life of vigilance 
 and strong excitement ; as in a camp, quarrels are settled
 
 224 LETTER XX. 
 
 in the west, summarily and on the spot, by a duel fought 
 with rifles, or knives, or with pistols at arm's length. 
 It is a life of sudden vicissitudes, of successes and re- 
 verses ; destitute to-day, rich to-morrow, and poor the day 
 after, the individual is blown about with every wind of 
 speculation, but the country goes on increasing in wealth 
 and resources. Like the soldier, the American of the 
 West takes for his motto, Victory or death ! But to him, vic- 
 tory is to make money, to get the dollars, to make a for- 
 tune out of nothing, to buy lots at Chicago, Cleveland, or 
 St. Louis, and sell them a year afterward at an advance 
 of 1000 per cent. ; to carry cotton to New Orleans when 
 it is worth 20 cents a pound. So much the worse for the 
 conquered ; so much the worse for those who perish in the 
 steamboats ! The essential point is not to save some in- 
 dividuals or even some hundreds ; but, in respect to steam- 
 ers, that they should be numerous ; staunch or not, well 
 commanded or not, it matters little, if they move at a 
 rapid rate, and are navigated at little expense. The cir- 
 culation of steamboats is as necessary to the West, as that 
 of the blood is to the human system. The West will 
 beware of checking and fettering it by regulations and 
 restrictions of any sort. The time is not yet come, but it 
 will come hereafter. 
 
 There are certain feelings in the human heart that must 
 show themselves in some form or another, and if repressed 
 in one point, will break out in another. Respect for the 
 depositaries of authority, which until the time of our rev- 
 olution, had so firmly cemented European society together, 
 has constantly been on the wane on this side of the 
 Atlantic, and in the West is totally obscured. There the 
 authorities, for so they are called, have as little power as 
 pay ; there are governors who govern nothing, judges who 
 are very liable to be brought to judgment themselves. 
 The chief magistrate is pompously styled in the constitu-
 
 WESTERN STEAMBOATS. 225 
 
 tions of these new States commander-in-chief of the army 
 and navy of the State. Pure mockery ! for it is at the 
 same time provided, except in time of war ; and even in 
 time of peace, he has hardly the power of appointing a 
 corporal. Yet the feeling of discipline and obedience 
 subsists, and it is instinctively transferred to those men 
 who are in fact the generals of the great migration. If 
 little concern is felt in regard to the Governor of the State, 
 every body is docile and obedient to the innkeeper, the 
 driver of the coach, and the captain of the steamboat ; 
 with them no one ventures to maintain the principles of 
 self-government. All rise, breakfast, dine, sup, when the 
 landlord or his lieutenant-general, the bar-keeper, thinks 
 fit to ring the bell, or beat the gong ; it is just as it is in a 
 camp. They eat what is placed before them, without 
 ever allowing themselves to make any remark about it. 
 They stop at the pleasure of the driver and the captain, 
 without showing the least symptom of impatience ; they 
 allow themselves to be overturned and their ribs to be 
 broken by the one. they suifer themselves to be drowned 
 or burnt up by the other, without uttering a complaint or 
 a reproach ; the discipline is even more complete than in 
 the camp. It has been said that the life of founders of 
 empires, from the times of Romulus to that of the buca- 
 neers, consists of a mixture of absolute independence and 
 passive obedience. The society which is now founding 
 itself in the West, has not escaped the common law. 
 
 This part of the United States, which was a mere wil- 
 derness at the time of the Declaration of Independence, 
 and on which no one spent a thought, when the capital 
 was fixed at Washington, will be the most powerful of 
 the three great sections of the Union, at the taking of 
 the next census. Before long, it will singly be superior 
 to the two others taken together, it will have the majority 
 in Congress, it will govern the New World. Already 
 29
 
 226 LETTER XX. 
 
 the old division into North and South is becoming of 
 secondary moment, and the great division of the Union 
 will soon be into the East and the West ; the present 
 President is a man of the West. The democratic party 
 have just held a convention at Baltimore to agree upon the 
 selection of candidates for the next presidential election. 
 Mr Van Buren, who is from the East, has been chosen, 
 but although he had the unanimous vote of the conven- 
 tion, he seems about to find a formidable competitor in the 
 bosom of his own party, in the person of Mr White of 
 Tennessee. On the subject of the Vice-Presidency there 
 was an animated debate in the convention itself; some 
 proposed Mr Rives from the South, others Mr Johnson 
 from the West. Mr Rives passes for a man in every res- 
 pect superior to his antagonist, his diplomatic services have 
 been highly esteemed by his countrymen. Mr Johnson 
 is honest, indeed, but there is great doubt, or rather there 
 is no doubt at all, about his abilities. The only claim set 
 up by his friends is, a strong suspicion that he killed 
 the celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh, in the battle of the 
 Thames. But then Mr Johnson is from the West, and 
 he has been preferred to his rival, even at the risk of 
 offending Virginia, whose influence in the South is 
 acknowledged to be commanding. Mr Van Buren has 
 yielded to this arrangement or probably he has concerted 
 it, because he would rather risk the loss of the South than 
 of the West. This, then, the West is already become ; 
 and when we reflect that the only visible instrument of 
 this progress is the steamboat, we shall not wonder that 
 the whole political system of some men is comprised in 
 physical improvements, and the interests connected with 
 them.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 227 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 
 
 BUFFALO, (N. Y.) JULY 9, 1835. 
 
 THE territory of the United States consists ; 1. of the 
 two great inland basins of the Mississippi and the St. 
 Lawrence, which run, the former from north to south to- 
 wards the Gulf of Mexico, the latter from south to north 
 toward the gulf to which it gives its own name : 2. on 
 the eastern side, of a group of smaller basins, which empty 
 their waters into the Atlantic ocean, and of which the 
 principal are those of the rivers Connecticut, Hudson, 
 Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, James, Roanoke, Santee, 
 Savannah, and Alatamaha. The Alleghany Mountains, 
 which, from their lying in the direction of the length of 
 the continent, are called the back-bone of the United 
 States, form a natural water-shed, dividing the great inland 
 basins from the eastern group of small basins. On the 
 west, the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi are 
 bounded by the Mexican Cordilleras, which here take the 
 name of Rocky Mountains. At the foot of this chain 
 spreads out a wide desert, bare of vegetation, and which, 
 excepting some oases, can never, it is said, be peopled by 
 man. 
 
 Almost the whole English-American population is as yet 
 on the left of the Mississippi. On the right bank there is 
 only one State, and that one of the least important of the 
 confederacy, and one Territory, that of Arkansas, which 
 will soon become one of the members of the Union.* 
 
 * Arkansas became a State in 1836. [It is a strange oversight of the au- 
 thor to say, that Missouri is the only State west of the Mississippi, when
 
 228 LETTER xxi. 
 
 The Alleghany chain does not reach a great height ; being 
 har dly as lofty as the Vosges, while the Rocky Mountains 
 exceed in elevation the Pyrenees and even the Alps. 
 
 The Alleghany system, although of no great height, 
 rises from a very wide base, of which the breadth is nearly 
 150 miles by an air-line. Viewed as a whole, it consists 
 of a number of cavities separated by as many ridges or 
 crests, and stretching with great uniformity, nearly from 
 one end of the chain to the other, from the shores of New 
 England, where the mountains are washed by the sea, to 
 the Gulf of Mexico, in the neighbourhood of which they 
 gradually sink down. These alternations of the ridges 
 and cavities form a series of parallel furrows, which may 
 be traced on the surface, with some breaks, through a dis- 
 tance of 1200 or 1500 miles. The geological forma- 
 tions are arranged very nearly in conformity with these 
 furrows, through great distances ; there are, however, ex- 
 ceptions from this rule, for sometimes the same layer is 
 seen to pass from one furrow to another, always cutting 
 the former at a very acute angle. 
 
 Notwithstanding this general character of regularity, 
 these cavities are not hydrographical basins or river val- 
 leys. But the rivers, instead of hollowing out beds be- 
 tween two successive ridges, and thus passing off to the 
 sea, frequently pass from one furrow to another, breaking 
 through the weak points of the ridges. These openings 
 or gaps, as they are here called, are highly useful as routes 
 for roads, canals, and railroads, enabling the engineer, by 
 
 nearly the whole of Louisiana is on its right bank. Neither is it correct to 
 say, that Missouri is one of the least important States. In point of territo- 
 rial extent, geographical position, agricultural resources, and mineral wealth, 
 she is one of the most important, and even in point of population, which is 
 increasing with great rapidity, is little behind many of her sisters. The 
 Territory of Iowa, established in 1837, on the north of Missouri, has now 
 about 30,000 inhabitants, and is rapidly filling with settlers. TRANSL.]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 229 
 
 following the course of the rivers, to flank heights, which 
 it would have been almost impossible to top. Of all these 
 openings the most interesting is that made by the Potomac 
 through the Blue Ridge, at Harper's Ferry, which Jeffer- 
 son, in his Virginian enthusiasm, said was worth a voyage 
 across the Atlantic. 
 
 The United States may then be divided hydrographi- 
 cally into two distinct regions, the one to the east, the 
 other to the west, of the Alleghanies ; or into three, 
 as under : 1. the Mississippi valley : 2. the valley of the 
 St. Lawrence with the great lakes : 3. the Atlantic coast. 
 This vast country may also be divided into the North and 
 the South, and it has two commercial capitals, New York 
 and New Orleans, which are, as it were, the two lungs of 
 this great body, the two galvanic poles of the system. 
 Between these two divisions, the North and the South, 
 there are radical differences, both in a political and an in- 
 dustrial point of view. The social frame in the South is 
 founded on slavery ; in the North, on universal suffrage. 
 The South is a great cotton-plantation, yielding also some 
 subsidiary articles, such as tobacco, sugar, and rice. The 
 North acts as factor or agent for the South, selling the pro- 
 ductions of the latter, and furnishing her in return with 
 those of Europe ; as a sailor, carrying her cotton beyond 
 sea ; as an artisan, making all her household utensils and 
 farming tools, her cotton-gins, her sugar-mills, her furni- 
 ture, wearing apparel, and all other articles of daily use, 
 and finding her also in corn and salted provisions. 
 
 From these views it appears that the great public works 
 in the United States must have the following objects : 
 1. To connect the Atlantic coast-region with the region 
 beyond the Alleghanies ; that is, to unite the rivers of the 
 former, such as the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, 
 the James, or its bays, such as the Delaware and the 
 Chesapeake, either with the Mississippi or its tributary the
 
 230 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Ohio, or with the St. Lawrence, or the great lakes 
 Erie and Ontario, whose waters are carried by the St. 
 Lawrence to the Ocean : 2. To form communications 
 between the Mississippi Valley and that of the St. I*aw- 
 rence, that is, between one of the great tributaries of the 
 Mississippi, such as the Ohio, the Illinois, or the W;ibash, 
 and Lake Erie or Lake Michigan, which, of all the / teat 
 lakes of the St. Lawrence basin, reach the furthest south- 
 wards. 3. To connect together the northern and south- 
 ern poles of the Union, New York and New Orleans. 
 
 Independently of these three new systems of public 
 works, which are in fact, in progress, and even in part 
 completed, there are numerous secondary lines, intended 
 to make the access to the centres of consumption more 
 easy, or to open outlets from certain centres of production, 
 whence arise two new classes of works ; the one inclu- 
 ding the various canals and railroads, which, starting from 
 the great cities as centres, radiate from them in all direc- 
 tions, and the other, comprising the similar works exe- 
 cuted for the transportation of coal from the coal-regions. 
 
 SECT. I. LINES EXTENDING ACROSS THE ALLEGHANIES. 
 
 The works which have hitherto almost wholly occu- 
 pied, and still chiefly occupy, the attention of statesmen 
 and business men in the United States, are those designed 
 to form communications between the East and the West. 
 There are on the Atlantic coast four principal towns, 
 which long strove with each other for the supremacy ; 
 namely, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. 
 All four aimed to secure the command of the commerce of 
 the new States which are springing up in the fertile re- 
 gions of the West, ; and they have sustained the struggle 
 with different degrees of success, but always with a rare 
 spirit of intelligence. They have not, however, been 
 equally favoured in respect to natural advantages. 13oston
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 231 
 
 is too far north ; she has no river which permits her to 
 stretch her arms far toward the West, and she is surround- 
 ed ly a hilly country, which throws great obstacles in the 
 way of rapid communication, and makes all works design- 
 ed to promote it expensive. Philadelphia and Baltimore 
 are shut up by ice almost every winter, and this obstruc- 
 tion is, on the part of the latter,* a drawback from the 
 other advantages of her position, her greater nearness to 
 the Ohio, her more central latitude, and the beauty of her 
 bay. which is above 250 miles in length, and receives 
 numberless streams, as the Susquehanna, Potomac, Patux- 
 ent, Rappahannock, &c. Philadelphia is badly placed ; 
 Penn was led astray by the beauty of the Schuylkill and 
 the Delaware ; he thought that the broad plain spread out 
 between their waters to the width of nearly three miles, 
 would afford an admirable site for a city, whose streets 
 should be run with regularity, and whose warehouses, 
 easy of access, would permit thousands of vessels to load 
 and unload at once. He forgot to secure for his city a 
 great hyurographical basin, capable of consuming the 
 merchandise which it should import, and of sending it in 
 return the products of its own labour, and he neglected to 
 make an examination of the Delaware, which he took for 
 a groat river, but which, unluckily is not so. If he had 
 founded the city of Brotherly Love on the banks of the 
 Susquehanna, it might have maintained a long struggle 
 against New York. 
 
 Now York is, then, the queen of the Atlantic coast. 
 This city stands on a long, narrow island, between two 
 rivers (the North River and the East River) ; ships of any 
 burden and in any numbers may lie at the wharves ; the 
 harbour is very rarely closed by ice ; it can be entered by 
 small vessels with all winds, and by the largest ships at 
 
 * This difficulty is almost wholly, if not quite, remedied by jce-boats.
 
 232 LETTER XXI. 
 
 all times except when the wind is from the northwest. 
 New York has beside the invaluable advantage of stand- 
 ing upon a river for which some great flood has dug out a 
 bed through the primitive mountains, uniformly deep, 
 without rocks, without rapids, almost without a slope, and 
 cutting through the most solid mass of the Alleghanies at 
 right angles. The tide, slight as it is on this coast, flows 
 up the Hudson to Troy, 160 miles from its mouth ; and 
 such is the nature of its bed, that whale-ships are fitted 
 out at Poughkeepsie and Hudson, of which the former is 
 75 and the latter 116 miles above New York, and that, 
 except in the lowest stage of the water, vessels of 9 feet 
 draft can go up to Albany and Troy, in any tide. 
 
 New York possesses in addition great advantages in res- 
 pect to the character of its population. Originally a Dutch 
 colony, conquered by the English, and lying in the neigh- 
 borhood of New England, she presents a mixture of the 
 solid qualities of the Saxon race, of the Dutch phlegm, 
 and the enterprising shrewdness of the Puritans. This 
 mixed breed understands admirably hww to turn to ac- 
 count all the advantages which nature has bestowed on 
 the city. 
 
 Hardly was the war of independence at an end, when 
 the great men whose patriotism and courage had brought 
 it to a happy close, filled with ideas of the wealth yet 
 buried in the bosom of the then uninhabited West, began to 
 form plans for rendering it accessible by canals. If it is 
 true, that Prussia, in the time of Voltaire, resembled two 
 garters stretched out over Germany, the ynited States in 
 the time of Washington and Franklin, and it is only fifty 
 years since, might be likened to a narrow riband thrown 
 upon the sandy- shore of the Atlantic. Washington at 
 that time projected the canal which has since been begun 
 according to the plans of Gen. Bernard^ and which seeks 
 the West by following up the Potomac ; but from want of
 
 .,- 
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 233 
 
 capital and experienced engineers, what in our day has 
 become a long and fine canal, was then merely a series of 
 side-cuts around the Little Falls and Great Falls of the 
 Potomac. At the same time, the Pennsylvanians made 
 some unsuccessful efforts and spent considerable sums, in 
 ineffectual attempts to render the Schuylkill navigable, 
 and to connect it with the Susquehanna. In the State of 
 New York, some short cuts, some locks and sluices, were 
 then the only prelude to greater schemes.* The works 
 undertaken at that time and during the fifteen first years of 
 the present century could not be completed, or failed in 
 the expected results. One work only was successfully 
 executed, the Middlesex Canal, which extends from Bos- 
 ton to the River Merrimack at Chelmsford, a distance of 
 27 miles.f 
 
 The war of 1812 found the United States without 
 canals, and almost without good roads ; their only means 
 of intercourse were the sea, their bays, and the rivers that 
 flow into them. Once blockaded by the English fleets, 
 not only could they hold no communication with Europe 
 and India, but they could not keep up an intercourse 
 among themselves, between State and State, and between 
 city and city, between New York and Philadelphia for in- 
 stance. Their commerce was annihilated, and the sources 
 of their capital dried up. Bankruptcy smote them like a 
 destroying angel, sparing not a family. 
 
 FIRST LINE. ERIE CANAL. 
 The lesson was hard, but it was not lost. The Ameri- 
 
 * In 1792 the New York legislature incorporated two companies, the 
 Western and the Northern Inland Lock Navigation companies, which, how- 
 ever, did nothing of importance, the former with authority to connect the 
 Hudson by the Mohawk with Seneca Lake and Lake Ontario, the latter to 
 form a junction between the Hudson and Lake Champlain. 
 
 t By Mr Baldwin, father of the late Loammi Baldwin, who constructed 
 the dry docks at Charlestown and Gosport. 
 
 30
 
 234 LETTER XXI. 
 
 cans, to do them justice, know how to profit by the teach- 
 ings of Providence, especially if they pay dear for them. 
 The project of a canal between New York and Lake Erie, 
 which had already been discussed before the war, was 
 eagerly taken up again after the peace. De Witt Clinton, 
 a statesman whose memory will be ever hallowed in the 
 United States, succeeded in inspiring his countrymen with 
 his own noble confidence in his country's great destiny, 
 and the first stroke of the spade was made on the 4th of 
 July, 1817. In spite of the evil forebodings of men dis- 
 tinguished for their sagacity and public services ; in spite 
 of the opinion of the venerated patriarch of democracy, 
 of Jefferson himself, who declared it necessary to wait a 
 century longer before undertaking such a work ; in spite 
 of the remonstrances of the illustrious Madison, who wrote 
 that it would be an act of folly on the part of the State 
 of New York to attempt, with its own resources only, the 
 execution of a work for which all the wealth of the Union 
 would be insufficient ; notwithstanding all opposition, 
 this State, which did not then contain a population of 
 1,300,000 inhabitants, began a canal 428 miles in length, 
 and in eight years it had completed it at a cost of 8,400,000 
 dollars. Since that time it has continued to add nume- 
 rous branches, covering almost every part of the State, as 
 with net- work. In 1836, the State had completed 656 
 miles of canal including slack-water navigation, at the 
 expense of 11,962,712 dollars, or 18,235 dollars per 
 mile.* 
 
 The results of this work have surpassed all expecta- 
 tions ; it opened an outlet for the fertile districts of the 
 
 * The official statements of the Canal Board, Feb. 23, 1837, are here given 
 instead of those of M. Chevalier. The statement in the text does not in- 
 clude the Black River Canal and the Genesee Valley Canal, begun in 1837, 
 with a total length of 168 miles, exclusive of 40 miles of improved navi- 
 gation in the Black River ; estimated cost, 3,000,000 dollars. TRANSL.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 235 
 
 western part of the State, which had before been cut off 
 from a communication with the sea and the rest of the 
 world. The shores of Lake Erie and Ontario were at 
 once covered with fine farms and nourishing towns. The 
 stillness of the old forest was broken by the axe of New 
 York and New England settlers, to the head of Lake 
 Michigan. The State of Ohio, which is washed by Lake 
 Erie, and which had hitherto had no connection with 
 the sea except by the long southern route down the Mis- 
 sissippi, had now a short and easy communication with 
 the Atlantic by way of New York. The territory of Michi- 
 gan was peopled, and it now contains 100,000 inhabitants, 
 and will soon take its rank among the States.* The trans- 
 portation on the Erie Canal exceeded 400.000 tons in 1834, 
 and it must nearly reach 500,000 tons in 1835. The annual 
 amount of tolls from the canals, and at moderate rates,, is 
 about one million and a half dollars. The population of 
 the city of New York, increased in the ten years, from 
 1820 to 1830, 80,000 souls.f New York is become the 
 third, if not the second port in the world, and the most 
 populous city of the western hemisphere. The illustrious 
 Clinton lived long enough to see the success of his plans, 
 but not to receive the brilliant reward which the gratitude 
 of his countrymen intended for him. He died, February 
 11, 1828, at the age of 59 years, and but for this prema- 
 ture death, he would probably have been chosen President 
 of the United States. 
 
 The Erie Canal is no longer sufficient for the commerce 
 which throngs it. In vain do the lock-masters attend 
 night and day to the signal horn of the boatmen, and per- 
 
 * Michigan became a State in 1837, at which time it had a population of 
 175,000 souls. TRANSL. 
 
 t The increase of the population has since been at a still more rapid rate ; 
 from 1830 to 1835, the number of inhabitants increased from 203,000 to 
 270,000, or including Brooklyn, from 218,000 to 294,000. TRANBL.
 
 236 LETTER XXI. 
 
 form the process of locking with a quickness that puts to 
 shame the slowness of our own ; there is no longer room 
 enough in the canal, whose dimensions however are rather 
 limited.* The impatience of commerce, with whom time 
 is money, is not satisfied with a rate of speed about four- 
 fold that which is common on our canals. Merchandise 
 of all sorts, as well as travellers, flows in at every point in 
 such quantities, that railroads have been constructed along 
 the borders of the canal, to rival the packet-boats in the 
 transportation of passengers only. There is one from 
 Albany to Schenectady, 15 miles in length, which, though 
 not well built, cost about 550,000 dollars. A second, 
 which will be finished in 1836, runs from Schenectady to 
 Utica, and is 78 miles in length.f A third railroad is in 
 progress from Rochester to Buffalo by way of Batavia and 
 Attica, about 80 miles in length, and it is probable that 
 before long the line will be completed from one end of the 
 canal to the other 4 
 
 A still greater undertaking is already in train ; a com- 
 pany was chartered in 1832, which will begin next spring 
 the construction of a railroad from New York city to Lake 
 Erie, through the southern counties of the State ; on 
 account of the circuitous route made necessary by the 
 uneven nature of the ground, the length of this road will 
 
 * It is 40 feet wide on the surface and 4 feet deep ; the locks are 95 feet 
 leng and 15 wide. The Languedoc Canal is 90 feet wide, and 6 1-2 feet 
 deep, with locks 115 feet long, 36 feet wide in the centre, and 18 at each 
 end. The English Canals are generally of about the dimensions of the Erie 
 Canal. 
 
 t The legislature incorporated the company on the express condition that 
 they should transport only travellers and their baggage. Notwithstanding 
 this provision, when the books were opened, seven times the amount of capi- 
 tal needed was subscribed; the sum required was 2,000,000 dollars; the 
 amount of subscriptions 14,000,000. 
 
 t Several links in this chain between Auburn and Utica on one side, and 
 Rochester on the other, are already completed. TRANSL.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 237 
 
 be about 340 miles.* Meanwhile the Canal Commission- 
 ers have not slept ; in July, the Canal Board, in compliance 
 with an act of the Legislature, directed the construction 
 of a double set of lift locks 1 on the whole line, in order 
 that there may be as little delay as possible in the passage 
 of boats, and the enlargement of the canal so that the 
 width shall be 70 feet and the depth 6 feet, with a corres- 
 ponding increase in the dimension of the locks ; larger 
 boats may then be used the speed may be increased, and 
 perhaps it will be practicable to use steam tow-boats. 
 The cost of this work is estimated at about 12,500,000 
 dollars. 
 
 Finally, to make herself more entirely mistress of the 
 commerce of the West, and to penetrate her own territory 
 more completely, the State of New York is about to 
 commence a new branch of the Erie canal (if we may call 
 a work of which the entire length will be 120 miles, a 
 branch), which will form an immediate connection with 
 the River Ohio. This canal is to run from Rochester, the 
 flourishing city of millers, following up the course of the 
 Genesee, with a rise of 979 feet to the summit level, and 
 a fall of 78 feet thence to Olean, on the River Alleghany, 
 270 miles from its junction with the Monongahelaat Pitts- 
 burg. The main canal from Rochester to Olean is only 
 107 miles in length, but there is a branch to Danville. 
 The Alleghany, in its natural state, is navigable only 
 during a few months in the year ; the total distance 
 from New York to Pittsburg by this route is 800 
 miles. 
 
 When there could no longer be a doubt of the speedy 
 completion of the Erie Canal, Philadelphia and Baltimore 
 
 * In the session of 1836, the legislature authorised a loan of the credit of 
 the State for the sum of 3,000,000 dollars to the company ; the estimated 
 cost of the road is 6,000,000. This road terminates at Tappan Sloat on the 
 Hudson.
 
 238 LETTER XXI. 
 
 felt that New York was going to become the capital of 
 the Union. The spirit of competition aroused in them a 
 spirit of enterprise. They wished also to have their 
 routes to the West ; but both had great natural obstacles 
 to overcome. By means of the Hudson, which had 
 forced a passage through the heart of the mountains, New 
 York was freed from the greatest difficulty in the way of 
 effecting a communication between the East and the 
 West, that of topping the crest of the Alleghanies. Be- 
 tween Albany, where the Erie canal begins, and Buffalo, 
 where it meets the lake, there are no high mountains. 
 Baltimore could not look for a similar service to the 
 Patapsco, nor Philadelphia to the Delaware ; neither of 
 these pities can approach the west by the basin of the 
 great lakes, unless by a very circuitous route ; they are 
 too far off. It became necessary for them, therefore, to 
 climb the loftiest heights, and thenco to descend to the 
 level of the Ohio with their works. 
 
 SECOND LINE. PENNSYLVANIA CANAL. 
 
 What is called the Pennsylvania canal is a long line of 
 400 miles, starting from Philadelphia, and ending at Pitts- 
 burg on the Ohio. It was begun simultaneously with 
 several other works, at the expense of the state of Penn- 
 sylvania, in 1826. It is not entirely a canal ; from Phila- 
 delphia a railroad 81 miles in length, extends to the 
 Susquehanna at Columbia. To the Columbia railroad, 
 succeeds a canal, 172 miles in length, which ascends the 
 Susquehanna and the Juniata to the foot of the mountains 
 at Holidaysburg. Thence the Portage railroad passes 
 over the mountain to Johnstown, a distance of 37 miles, 
 by means of several inclined planes constructed on a 
 grand scale, with an inclination sometimes exceeding one 
 tenth, which does not, however, deter travellers from going
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 239 
 
 over them.* From Johnstown a second canal goes to 
 Pittsburg, 104 miles. This route is subject to the incon- 
 venience of three transhipments, one at Columbia at the 
 end of the railroad from Philadelphia, and the others at the 
 ends of the Portage railroad, one of these may be avoided 
 by means of two canals constructed by incorporated com- 
 panies, namely, the Schuylkill canal, which extends up 
 the river of that name, and the Union canal, which forms 
 a junction between the upper Schuylkill and the Susque- 
 hanna. The distance from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by 
 this route is 435 miles, or 35 miles more than by the 
 other route. 
 
 The Pennsylvania canal, begun in 1826, was finished 
 in 1834. The State has connected with this work a 
 general system of canalization, which embraces all the 
 principal rivers, and especially the Susquehanna, with its 
 two great branches (the North Branch and the West 
 Branch), and also works preparatory to a canal connecting 
 Pittsburg with Lake Erie, at Erie, a town founded by our 
 Canadian countrymen, and by them called Presqu'ile. 
 Pennsylvania has executed, then, in all about 820 miles 
 of canals and railroads, of which 118 are railroads, at a 
 cost of about 25,000,000 dollars, exclusive of sums paid 
 for interest. Average cost per mile, 35,000 dollars ; aver- 
 age cost per mile, of canals, 32,500 ; average cost per 
 mile of railroads, 48,000. 
 
 This is much more than the cost of the New York 
 works, although the dimensions of the works are the same, 
 and the natural difficulties were not greater in one case 
 than in the other ; it is owing to bad management in 
 
 * The maximum of inclination allowed by our Administration des Ponts- 
 et-Chauss^es (board of public works) is 2~<T7Jj in the great lines executed at 
 the expense of government, the inclination has generally been kept below 
 Tj-STJ, which is the maximum adopted in the fine railroad from London to 
 Birmingham.
 
 240 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvanians had no Clinton to 
 guide them. An unwise economy, forced upon the 
 Canal Commissioners by the legislature, prevented them 
 from securing the services of able engineers, and for the 
 sake of saving some thousands of dollars in salaries, they 
 have been obliged to spend millions in repairing what was 
 badly done, or in doing badly what more able hands would 
 have executed well at less cost. 
 
 THIRD LINE. BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD. 
 
 Still less than Philadelphia, could Baltimore think of a 
 continuous canal to the Ohio. Wishing to avoid the tran- 
 shipments which are necessary on the Pennsylvania line, 
 the Baltimoreans decided on the construction of a railroad 
 extending from their city to Pittsburg or Wheeling, the 
 whole length of which would be about 360 miles. It is 
 now finished as far as Harper's Ferry on the Potomac, a dis- 
 tance of 80 miles, and the company seem to have given 
 up the design of carrying it further. It will here be con- 
 nected with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, of which I 
 shall speak below, as the Columbia railroad is connected 
 with the Pennsylvania canal. It is probable, that, on 
 approaching the crest of the Alleghanies, the canal will 
 in turn give away to a railroad across the mountains, and 
 thus the Maryland works will be similar to the Penn- 
 sylvania line.* 
 
 * In 1836 the Maryland legislature voted the sum of 8,000,000 dollars in 
 aid of public works,^of which 3,000,000 were appropriated to the Baltimore 
 and Ohio railroad, and 3,000,000 to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and 
 rest is divided between several works, one of which is intended to connect 
 Annapolis, the capital, with the Potomac. Baltimore has also subscribed 
 3,000,000 dollars towards aiding the completion of the railroad. [Virginia 
 and Wheeling have also subscribed 1,000,000 each for the same object, and 
 so far from being come to a stand, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad is now 
 pushed on with great vigour towards Cumberland. TRANSL.]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 241 
 
 FOURTH LINE. CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL. 
 
 The plan, which had been cherished by Washington, of 
 making a lateral canal along the Potomac which should 
 one day be extended across the mountains to the Ohio, 
 was resumed when New York had taught the country 
 that it was now ripe for the boldest enterprises of this 
 kind. John Q,uincy Adams, then President of the United 
 States, favoured the project with all his might. At that 
 time it was not a settled principle, that the Federal govern- 
 ment had no right to engage in internal improvements. 
 The old idea, which Washington had cherished, of making 
 the political capital of the Union a great city, was not 
 less to the taste of Mr Adams and his friends. It was, 
 therefore; resolved to undertake the Chesapeake and Ohio 
 Canal, and a company was incorporated for this purpose. 
 Congress voted a subscription of 1,000,000 dollars ; the 
 city of Washington without commerce, without manufac- 
 tures, with its population of 16,000 souls, subscribed the 
 same sum ; the other little cities of the Federal District, 
 Georgetown and Alexandria, having both together a popu- 
 lation of about 10,000, furnished a half million ; Virginia 
 contributed 250,000, and Maryland 500,000 dollars ; and 
 600,000 dollars were raised by individual subscriptions. 
 The work was begun July 4, 1828. Next year, by aid of 
 a loan of 3,000,000 from Maryland, this great work will 
 be carried to the coal-beds of Cumberland at the foot of 
 the mountains ; the length of this division is 185 miles, 
 the estimated cost 8,500,000 dollars, or 46,000 dollars per 
 mile. The execution is on a bold scale, and superior to 
 that of the works before-mentioned ; its dimensions ex- 
 ceed those generally adopted in the proportion of 3 to 2, 
 which gives a larger section in the ratio of 9 to 4. 
 31
 
 242 LETTER XXI. 
 
 FIFTH LINE. JAMES RIVER AND KANAWHA COMMUNICATION. 
 
 Virginia, formerly the first State in the confederacy, 
 but now fallen to the fourth in rank, and already out- 
 stripped by Ohio, which was not in being during the war 
 of Independence, is at length roused to action, and has 
 determined to profit by the lessons, which have come to 
 her from the North. A company, whose means consist of 
 little more than the subscriptions of the State and of the 
 capital, Richmond, is about to open a canal from the East 
 to the West. James River, which flows into Chesapeake 
 B&y, is navigable for vessels of 200 tons to the foot of the 
 table-land, on which Richmond stands in so charming a 
 situation. On the east of the mountains, the canal, start- 
 ing from Richmond, will follow the course of James 
 River, and on the West it will descend the Kanawha, one 
 of the tributaries of the Ohio, to Charleston, at the head 
 of steamboat navigation. The Alleghany crest will be 
 passed by a railroad, 150 miles in length ; the canal itself 
 will be about 250 miles long. 
 
 South Carolina, stirred up by the example of Virginia, 
 is engaged in a great railroad from Charleston to Cincin- 
 nati on the Ohio ; and the surveys are at present actively 
 going on. The people of Cincinnati are enthusiastically 
 interested in this scheme.* Georgia is also dreaming of a 
 great railroad from the Savannah to the Mississippi, at 
 Memphis ; but this project has not assumed a substantial 
 
 * In 1836, the construction of this road has been authorised by the legis- 
 latures of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. 
 The surveys have been completed, the route fixed upon, and a board organ- 
 ised for pushing the work with vigour. Mr Hayne, late a Senator in Con- 
 gress, and since governor of South Carolina, and one of the most highly 
 respected men in the country, is president. Including the two branches, 
 one to Louisville, and one to Maysville, the whole length of the road will 
 be 700 miles ; the estimated cost is 11,870,000 dollars.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 243 
 
 shape. North Carolina does nothing, and projects nothing. 
 If she ever becomes rich, it will not be because she has 
 seized fortune by the forelock, but because fortune has 
 come to her bedside.* 
 
 SIXTH LINE. RICHELIEU CANAL. 
 
 The Canadians are constructing a canal which will form 
 another communication between the East and the West, 
 that is, between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence, be- 
 tween New York and Quebec. The great fissure, which 
 forms so fine a bed for the Hudson between New York 
 and Troy, does not end here, but stretches o,n towards the 
 north to the St. Lawrence; constituting the basin of Lake 
 Champlain, which is a long and .narrow cavity in the 
 midst of the mountains, and the bed of the River Riche- 
 lieu. Between Lake Champlain and the Hudson, there is 
 only a ridge 54 feet above the level of the former, and 
 134 above that of the latter. The River Richelieu, which 
 issues from the northern end of the lake and flows into 
 the St Lawrence, is broken by rapids, and a lateral canal, 
 12 miles in length, and of sufficient dimensions to receive 
 
 * [Two great works are now actively pushed on in Georgia, which will 
 form another connection between the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic ; 
 these are the Central railroad from Savannah to Decatur, 285 miles, and the 
 Georgia railroad from Augusta to the same place, 1GO miles in length ; the 
 Main Trunk of the Atlantic and Western railroad is the common continua- 
 tion of these two roads from Decatur to the Tennessee, a distance of 120 
 miles. These works are already in a state of forwardness, and a third, the 
 Brunswick and Florida railroad, now under survey, will extend from Bruns- 
 wick to the head of the Appalachicola, and connect the southernmost part of 
 the western valley with the Atlantic. In North Carolina, beside the Ra- 
 leigh and Gaston railroad, the railroad from the Roanoke to Wilmington is 
 now nearly completed. As steam-packets run from Wilmington to Charles, 
 ton, and the Chattahoochee is already connected with Montgomery, which 
 stands at the head of steamboat navigation on the Alabama, the continua- 
 tion of the Central railroad from Decatur to the Chattahoochee, a distance 
 of 80 miles, is all that is wanted to complete the communication between 
 Boston and New Orleans by railroads and steamboats. TRANSL.]
 
 244 LETTER XXI. 
 
 the lake-craft, will be opened here in the course of a 
 year ; the cost will be 350,000 dollars ; the distance from 
 New York to Quebec by the canals, rivers, and lakes, is 
 540 miles. The railroad from St. John, where the rapids 
 of the Richelieu begin, to Laprairie, on the St. Lawrence, 
 opposite to Montreal, a distance of 16 miles, effects for 
 Montreal what the canal does for Quebec ; it cost about 
 160,000 dollars, or 10,500 dollars per mile. The distance 
 from Montreal to New York is 360 miles. 
 
 SECTION II. LINES OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI 
 VALLEY AND THAT OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 
 
 There is no mountain chain between these two val- 
 leys ; the basin of the great lakes, whose united waters 
 form the St. Lawrence, is separated from the valley of the 
 Mississippi only by a spur of the Alleghany system, not 
 exceeding 450 feet in height, and sinking rapidly down 
 toward the west, so as to be elevated but a few feet above 
 the surface of Lake Michigan. During the rainy season, 
 when the streams are swollen and the marshes of the 
 water-shed are flooded, our Canadian countrymen were 
 wont to pass in boats from Lake Michigan into the Illinois, 
 by the Des Plaines. The breadth of this dividing spur 
 is more considerable than its height. It is not a ridge or 
 crest, but rather a table-land, which imperceptibly merges 
 by gentle slopes into the plains that surround it. Its 
 level summit is filled with marshes, and therefore offers 
 great facilities for feeding the canals which traverse it ; 
 further west, where it is scarcely higher than the rest of 
 the country, it is often as dry as the surrounding prairies. 
 
 FIRST LINE. OHIO CANAL. 
 
 Only one work connecting the two valleys is as yet 
 completed, this is the Ohio canal, which traverses that 
 State from North to South, extending from Portsmouth,
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 245 
 
 on the Ohio, to the little city of Cleaveland, which has 
 sprung up on the shore of the lake since the canal was 
 made. It is 334 miles in length, and cost nearly 4,500,000 
 dollars, or about 13,500 dollars per mile. This is low, 
 yet the locks are all of hewn stone ; the ground, however, 
 was very favorable. The work was executed at the ex- 
 pense of the State, and was undertaken at the same time 
 that Pennsylvania and Baltimore, on the traces of New 
 York, started in the course of internal improvements. 
 This young State, with a population of farmers, not hav- 
 ing a single engineer within her limits, and none of whose 
 citizens had ever seen any other canal than those of New 
 York, has thus, with the aid of some second rate engineers 
 borrowed from that State, constructed a canal longer than 
 any in France, with more skill and intelligence than was 
 displayed by Pennsylvania, in spite of the scientific lights 
 of Philadelphia. This farming population of Ohio, almost 
 wholly of New England origin, has a business instinct, a 
 practical shrewdness, and a readiness to exercise all trades 
 without having learned them, that would be sought in 
 vain in the Anglo-German population of Pennsylvania. 
 The legislators, under whose direction the public works were 
 executed in both States, were, as is usual in the United 
 States, a perfect copy of the mass of their constituents, 
 with all its good and bad qualities. The Ohio canal 
 commissioners added to a noble disinterestedness an admi- 
 rable good sense, and to them is due the greater part of 
 the glory of having planned and executed it. They were 
 farmers and lawyers, who set themselves about making 
 canals, naturally, easily, and without even a suspicion that 
 in Europe no one dares to undertake such a work without 
 long preparation and scientific studies. Now it is no 
 longer an art in that State to plan and construct canals, but 
 a mere trade ; the science of canalling is there become 
 quite an affair of the common people. The first-comer in
 
 246 LETTER XXI. 
 
 a bar-roorn will explain to you, over his glass of whiskey, 
 how to feed the summit level and how to construct a lock. 
 All our mysteries in civil engineering are here fallen into 
 the hands of the public, very much as the methods of 
 descriptive geometry are to be found in the workshops, 
 where they had been handed down by tradition, ages be- 
 fore Monge gave them the sanction of theory. 
 
 I have before said that Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois form 
 a great triangle, wholly comprised within the Mississippi 
 valley, with the exception of a narrow strip along the 
 lakes, belonging, of course, to the St. Lawrence basin. 
 The general slope of the surface is from north to south ; 
 the streams run mostly in that direction ; this is especially 
 true of the great tributaries of the Ohio. This arrange- 
 ment of the secondary valleys is no less favourable to the 
 construction of canals between the lakes, on the one side, 
 and the Ohio and Mississippi on the other, than the con- 
 figuration and humidity of the dividing table-land. 
 
 SECOND LINE. MIAMI CANAL. 
 
 Ohio has constructed another canal, which, starting from 
 Cincinnati on the Ohio, runs north to Dayton, and is called 
 the Miami canal. It is 65 miles in length, and cost nearly 
 1,000,000 dollars, or 15,400 dollars a mile. By the aid of 
 a grant of land from Congress, and the State's resources, 
 its prolongation is now in progress to Defiance, on the 
 river Maumee, the site of a fortress of that name built by 
 Gen. Wayne after his celebrated victory over the Indians. 
 The Maumee, which was called by the French the 
 Miami of the Lakes, is one of the principal tributa- 
 ries of Lake Erie, and is to be canalled by the State. 
 The distance from Dayton to Defiance is 125 miles ; esti- 
 mated cost 2,750,000 dollars, or 22,000 dollars per mile.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 247 
 
 THIRD LINE. WABASH AND ERIE CANAL. 
 
 Ohio and Indiana, with the aid of a grant of land* from 
 Congress, have undertaken in concert a canal, which will 
 connect the Wabash, one of the tributaries of the Ohio, 
 with the Maumee. The greater part of the canal will be 
 parallel to the two rivers, or in their beds ; the length of 
 the whole work will be 382 miles, of which 195 are in 
 Indiana, and 87 in Ohio. The greater portion of the 
 Indiana section lateral to the Wabash has been completed, 
 but Ohio has not yet been able to commence her portion, 
 because, owing to an absurd system of establishing boun- 
 daries, the mouth of the Maumee, whose -whole course is 
 in Ohio, will fall within Michigan.! Ohio protests against 
 this arrangement, Michigan stands firm to her claims ; 
 both sides have voted the sums needful for war, and both 
 have taken arms ; hostilities have even been begun, bat 
 the interference of the Federal government has led the 
 parties to consent to an armistice. In this quarrel, Ohio 
 has reason on her side, but Michigan appeals to the letter 
 of the laws as favourable to her. It is probable that in 
 creating Michigan a State, Congress will attach this strip 
 to Ohio, to whom it is so important. J In this unsettled 
 
 * These grants of land are generally made so that every other section (of 
 six miles square) along the line of the work is retained by Congress, and 
 the rest are given to the State or company constructing the canal. Some- 
 times, however, a certain number of acres in some other quarter is granted 
 outright. 
 
 t No one can look at a map of the United States without being struck by 
 the appearance of the right lines, constituting the frontiers of most of the 
 States ; this method of bounding a territory by meridians and parallels of 
 latitude is absurd, since it requires an infinite number of geodesic operations, 
 which have not been executed, and cannot be so for a long time. Meridians 
 and parallels do very well for the divisions of the heavens ; but for the 
 earth, there are no suitable boundaries but the beds of rivers, or water-sheds 
 in the mountain chains. 
 
 t By the act establishing the State of Michigan (1836), Congress has an- 
 nexed this disputed belt to Ohio. [The whole line of this great work is 
 now nearly completed. TRANSL.]
 
 248 LETTER XXI. 
 
 state of things, Ohio has suspended the execution of her 
 part of a work, which will give new importance to the 
 mouth of the Maumee. 
 
 FOURTH LINE. ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL. 
 
 The project of a canal from the Chicago, at the southern 
 end of Lake Michigan, to the head of steam navigation, 
 that is, to the foot of the falls, in the River Illinois, has 
 long been discussed. It is said to be of very easy con- 
 struction ; and that by means of a cut of the maximum 
 depth of 26 feet, the summit level can be reduced to the 
 level of Lake Michigan, so that the lake can be used as a 
 feeder. It will be 96 miles in length, and will traverse a 
 level or slightly undulating country, bare of trees, and 
 still known by the name given it by the French Canadians, 
 Prairie. It is proposed to construct this canal of larger 
 dimensions than is common in the United States, so as to 
 make it navigable by the lake-craft and steamboats. It 
 is one of the most useful works ever undertaken in the 
 world.* 
 
 FIFTH LINE. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA CANAL. 
 
 The canal which has been commenced by Pennsylvania 
 between the Ohio and the town of Erie, 112 miles in 
 length, and for feeding which extensive works have al- 
 ready been constructed around Lake Conneaut, will make 
 another and a short line of water communication between 
 the basins of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. 
 
 * The work was begun on the canal, July 4, 183G ; it is six feet deep, and 
 CO feet wide at top ; estimated cost 8,654,300 dollars. [The progress of 
 population in that region within the last two years has given rise to new 
 and very important projects. One of these is a canal connecting the Rock 
 River with Lake Michigan, at Milwaukie, and the other is the junction of 
 the Wisconsin with the Fox River of Green Bay, thus adding two links to the 
 chain of communication between the Mississippi and St. Lawrence valleys. 
 TRANSL.]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 249 
 
 DIFFERENT LINES. 
 
 Lastly, two canals are about to be undertaken, which 
 will connect the Pennsylvania works with those of Ohio, 
 and of consequence, form new connections between the 
 Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. One of these is the 
 Sandy and Beaver canal, which, beginning at the conflu- 
 ence of the Big Beaver with the Ohio, follows the latter 
 to the mouth of the Little Beaver, ascends the valley of 
 this stream, and passes down that of the Sandy River to 
 the Ohio canal at Bolivar ; the length will be 90 miles. 
 From Bolivar to New York by the Ohio canal, Lake Erie, 
 Erie canal, and the Hudson, the distance is 785 miles; 
 by the new canal the distance from Bolivar to Philadelphia, 
 that is, to the ocean, is only 512. The Mahoning canal 
 leaves the Ohio canal at Akron, .following the valleys of 
 the Little Cuyahoga, the Mahoning, a tributary of the 
 Big Beaver, and the Big Beaver, to the Ohio it is about 
 90 miles in length ; the distance from Akron to the river 
 Ohio is 115 miles. 
 
 The generally level character of the surface of Ohio, 
 Indiana, and Illinois is not less favourable to the construc- 
 tion of railroads than to that of canals. But as capital is 
 scarce in this new country, which is as yet but imperfectly 
 brought under cultivation, but few enterprises of much 
 importance have hitherto been undertaken. The financial 
 companies and institutions, which have always preceded 
 the introduction of canals and railroads, have, however, 
 been already established and are prosperous, and their 
 success is the omen of the approach of the latter. In the 
 absence of companies, the States are ready to adopt the 
 most extensive schemes of public works ; for the American 
 of the West is not a whit behind the American of the 
 East in enterprise. At present, I know of but a single 
 railroad actually in process of construction beyond the 
 32
 
 250 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Ohio, and that does not seem to be pushed forward with 
 much activity ; it is the Mad River railroad, which is to 
 extend from Dayton, on the Miami canal, to Sandusky, 
 on the bay of that name in Lake Erie ; the length will 
 be 153 miles. Many others have been projected in this 
 region, and Indiana has caused surveys to b'3 made for a 
 railroad extending across the State from north to south, 
 or from New Albany on the Ohio to some point on Lake 
 Michigan.* 
 
 WORKS FOR IMPROVING THE NAVIGATION OF THE OHIO, MISSISSIPPI, 
 AND ST. LAWRENCE. 
 
 To this head belong the works executed in the beds of 
 the rivers themselves. The Mississippi is the beau ideal 
 of rivers in regard to navigable facilities. From St. Louis 
 to New Orleans, a distance of nearly 1200 miles, there is 
 
 * In 1836, the legislature of Indiana adopted a general system of public 
 works, for the execution of which it authorised a loan of 10,000,000 dollars. 
 The system embraces the canalisation of the Wabash and While River, 
 the connection of the Wabash with the Maurnee, and of Lake Michigan 
 with the same river by canals, and a canal across the centre of the State 
 from Evansville by Indianapolis to the Wabash and Erie canal. Appropri- 
 ations were made by the same law for railroads from Madison and Jeffer- 
 sonville on the Ohio to the Wabash canal, and in aid of the Lawrenceburg 
 and Indianapolis railroad which has been undertaken by a company. [The 
 State of Illinois has also made provision for a series of public works on an 
 equally liberal scale ; an act of 1837 establishes a Board of Public Works 
 and an Internal Improvement Fund, and provides for the construction of a 
 railroad across the State from north to south, reaching from the junction of 
 the Ohio and Mississippi by Vandalia and Peru to Galena, being about 460 
 miles in length ; of four roads crossing the State from east to west, namely, 
 from Shawneetown on the Ohio to Alton on the Mississippi, from Mt. Car- 
 mel on the Wabash to Alton, from Terre Haute on the Wabash to Alton, 
 and from Covington on the Wabash to Quincy on the Mississippi, and of 
 another cross road from Bloomington, in the centre of the State to Warsaw 
 on the Mississippi. These works are now in active progress, as are also 
 some works for improving the navigation of the Illinois, Rock River, 
 Kaskaskia and Little Wabash. The youthful State of Michigan has fol- 
 lowed the example of these elder sisters, by establishing a Board of Public
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 251 
 
 water enough for steamers of 300 tons throughout the 
 year. Its yellow and muddy waters flow in a deep, al- 
 though very circuitous channel, and its general breadth is 
 from 800 to 1,000 yards, in places where it is not expanded 
 to a much greater width by low, flat islands, thickly cov- 
 ered with trees. There are no sand-banks in this part of 
 the channel, yet there are formidable dangers in the way 
 of the inexperienced navigator ; these are the trunks of 
 trees, that have been carried away from the banks, as has 
 been before mentioned, and in the removal of which the 
 Federal government keeps steam snag-boats, the Heliopolis 
 and Archimedes, employed ; these boats are provided with 
 a peculiar machinery by means of which they drag the 
 trees up from the bed, and saw them into pieces of an 
 inconsiderable length. 
 
 Captain Shreves, who has the command of these boats, 
 and who invented the machinery, is also employed in con- 
 structing sunk dams of loose stones in the Ohio, which 
 have the effect of increasing the depth of water in the dry 
 season. He is at present engaged with a flotilla of steam- 
 boats in opening the bed of Red River, one of the great 
 tributaries of the Mississippi, which the drift timber has 
 choaked up and covered over through a distance of 165 
 miles.* At Louisville, the Ohio, whose bed has generally 
 a very slight inclination, has a descent of 22 feet in the 
 distance of two miles, so as to be impassable for steam- 
 Works, and directing the construction of three railroads across the peninsula, 
 from Monroe, Detroit, and Huron to Lake Michigan, and a canal from the 
 river Saginaw of Lake Huron to the Grand River of Lake Michigan. 
 There are also several railroads executed by companies in Michigan. 
 TRANSL.] 
 
 * [This work was completed in the spring of 1838, at which time several 
 steamboats passed wholly through the place formerly occupied by the raft. 
 The removal of that obstruction, has extended the navigation by steamboats 
 750 miles on the Red River, exclusive of 600 miles on several branches. 
 TRANSL.] x
 
 252 LETTER XXI. 
 
 boats, except during the season of high water. The 
 Louisville and Portland canal has been constructed by a 
 company to avoid this obstruction ; it is nearly one mile 
 and three fourths in length, and cost 750,000 dollars.* 
 It receives the largest boats at a rate of toll which for the 
 Henry Clay amounts to 175 dollars, and for the Uncle 
 Sam 190 dollars. It has been proposed that Congress 
 should buy this canal, and make the passage toll-free ; and 
 the importance of the navigation of the Ohio would justify 
 the measure. 
 
 The St. Lawrence differs essentially from the Mississippi ; 
 instead of an expanse of muddy waters, it presents to the 
 eye a clear blue surface. The Mississippi traverses a low, 
 uninhabited, and uninhabitable region, of which the soil 
 consists entirely of sand, or rather of mud deposited by 
 the river-floods ; not a stone as large as the fist is to be 
 found, and only a few bluff points are met with which are 
 above the reach of high water, and on which the pale 
 inhabitants struggle unsuccessfully with the pestilential 
 emanations of the surrounding swamps. The St. Law- 
 rence flows through a broken, hilly, and sometimes rugged 
 country, with a fertile soil, everywhere healthful, sprinkled 
 with flourishing villages, which attract the eye of the 
 traveller from a distance by their houses newly white- 
 washed every year, and their churches built in the French 
 style with their spires covered with tin. The Mississippi, 
 like the Nile, has its annual overflow, or rather it has two in 
 each year, but the spring-floods are much the most conside- 
 rable. The St. Lawrence, owing to the vast extent of the 
 lakes which serve as a reservoir and feeder to it, always 
 preserves the same level, the extreme range of its rise and 
 fall being only about 20 inches. The St. Lawrence, from 
 
 * It is 50 feet wide at bottom and 200 feet at top, and has four locks, 170 
 feet long by 50 wide.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 253 
 
 the beauty of its waters, from their prodigious volume, 
 from the country which it waters, and from the groups of 
 isles scattered over it, would be one of the first rivers in 
 the world in the eyes of the artist, but. in those of the 
 merchant, it is of quite a secondary importance. Its trans- 
 parent waters hardly hide the numerous rocks ; the navi- 
 gation is interrupted first by the Falls of Niagara, and 
 after it leaves Lake Ontario by numerous rapids, cataracts, 
 or rocks between that lake and Montreal, and none but an 
 Indian or a French Canadian, would dare to descend these 
 points in that portion of the river in a canoe ; at several 
 points, the most powerful steamer would be unable to make 
 head against the current. 
 
 The spirit of emulation which has prevailed among the 
 States of the Union, has extended to the British Provinces, 
 to the English population, which, leaving the lower part 
 of the river to the French, has occupied Upper Canada. 
 The inhabitants of this Province have embraced the opin- 
 ion, that if the chain of communication which is broken 
 by the cataracts and rapids, could be made whole, much 
 of the produce, which now finds its way to the Mississippi, 
 or to the Pennsylvania and New York canals, would seek 
 a more convenient vent by the St. Lawrence, and that the 
 British manufactures would take the same route up the 
 river, through the ports of duebec and Montreal, to the 
 Western States. One canal has, therefore, already been 
 executed around the falls of the Niagara, which forms a 
 communication between Lakes Erie and Ontario ; the 
 Welland canal is 28 miles in length, exclusive of 20 miles 
 of slack- water navigation. It is navigable by lake-craft 
 of 120 tons, and has cost 2,000,000 dollars, nearly the 
 whole of which was furnished by the upper Province, 
 Lower Canada and the mother country having contributed 
 a very trifling sum. 
 
 Since that work has been completed, the river below
 
 254 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Lake Ontario has been surveyed, and it has been found 
 that the aggregate length of the points not passable by 
 steamboats of ten feet draft is only 30 miles, pretty equally 
 divided between the two provinces. Upper Canada, which 
 contains hardly 250,000 inhabitants, with no large towns 
 and with little capital, has begun her portion of the work 
 along the rapids within her limits. This work will be 
 large enough to admit the passage of steamboats drawing 
 nine feet water, and of the burden of 500 tons. I saw 
 the labourers at work along the Long Saut Rapids at 
 Cornwall, where there will be a cut of 13 miles in length ; 
 the estimated cost of this section is 1,250.000 dollars. 
 The French population of Lower Canada, swallowed up 
 in political quarrels, the result of which cannot be foreseen, 
 neglects its essential interests in pursuit of the imaginary 
 interests of national pride. It has done nothing towards 
 continuing, within its limits, the great work, which has 
 been begun by the poorer province of Upper Canada. 
 
 SECT. HI. LINES OF COMMUNICATION ALONG THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 FIRST LINE. INLAND CHANNELS BY THE SOUNDS AND BAYS 
 ALONG THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 Upon examining the coast of the United States from 
 Boston to Florida, it will be seen that there is almost a 
 continuous line of inland navigation, extending from north- 
 east to southwest in a direction parallel to that of the 
 coast, formed, in the north by a series of bays and rivers, 
 and in the south, by a number of long sounds, or by the 
 narrow passes between the mainland and the chain of low 
 islands that lie in front of the former. The necks of land 
 that separate these bays, rivers, and lagoons, are all flat 
 and of inconsiderable breadth. From Providence (42 
 miles south of Boston) to New York are Narragansett Bay 
 and Long Island Sound, together 180 miles in length.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 255 
 
 Thence to reach to the Delaware you go to New Bruns- 
 wick at the head of the Raritan Bay, where you encoun- 
 ter the New Jersey isthmus, a level tract, not more than 
 40 feet above the level of the sea, or than 35 to 40 miles 
 in width. This neck is now cut across by the Raritan 
 and Delaware Canal, a fine work, navigable by the 
 small coasting craft, and 43 miles in length, exclusive of a 
 navigable feeder 24 miles, all lately executed by a compa- 
 ny, in less than three years, at a cost of about 2,500,000 
 dollars.* 
 
 This canal terminates at Bordentown, on the Delaware. 
 Hence the navigation is continued to Delaware City, 70 
 miles below Bordentown, and 40 below Philadelphia. 
 There, the isthmus which divides the Delaware from the 
 Chesapeake, is cut through by a canal, of which the sum- 
 mit level is only 12 feet above the surface of the sea ; this 
 is the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, like the last men- 
 tioned of dimensions suited to coasting vessels. The cost 
 was very great, about 2,600,000 dollars ; length 13 1-2 
 miles. Having entered the Chesapeake, the voyage may 
 be continued to Norfolk about 200 miles. Thence, to the 
 series of sounds and inland channels on the coast of North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, extends the Dismal 
 Swamp Canal, whose length is 20 miles, and whose sum- 
 mit level is only 10 feet above the level of the sea ; this 
 is also adapted for coasting vessels. The works intended 
 to continue the navigation beyond the sounds connected 
 with the Dismal Swamp canal, have not been completed, 
 and to the south of the Chesapeake the line is, therefore, 
 imperfect ; but steamboats run from Charleston to Savan- 
 nah, by the channels and lagoons between the mainland 
 and the low islands which yield the famous long-staple 
 cotton. 
 
 * It is from 65 to 75 feet wide at top, and 7 feet deep. The locks are well 
 constructed, and very expeditiously worked.
 
 256 LETTER XXI. 
 
 SECOND LINE. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH 
 BY THE MARITIME CAPITALS. 
 
 Parallel to the preceding line which is designed for the 
 transportation of bulky articles, is another further inland 
 for the use of travellers, and the lighter and more valuable 
 merchandise, on which steam is becoming the only motive 
 power, both by land and by water ; by land on railways, 
 and by water in steamboats. You go from Boston to 
 Providence by a railroad, 42 miles in length, which cost 
 1,500,000 dollars, or 33,000 dollars a mile. From Provi- 
 dence to New York, passengers are carried by the steam- 
 boats in from 14 to 18 hours ; some boats have made the 
 passage in 12 hours. In passing from Narragansett Bay 
 to the Sound, it is necessary to double Point Judith, where 
 there is commonly a rough sea, to avoid which a railway 
 is now in progress from Providence to Stonington, a dis- 
 tance of 47 miles. A third railroad, of which the utility 
 seems questionable (since the boats in the Sound move at 
 the rate of 15 miles an hour), is projected from a point on 
 Long Island opposite Stonington to Brooklyn, a distance 
 of 88 miles. 
 
 Between New York and Philadelphia, you go by steam- 
 boat to South Amboy on Raritan Bay, 28 miles, whence 
 a railroad extends across the peninsula to Bordentown, 
 and down along the Delaware to Camden, opposite Phila- 
 delphia. In summer a steamboat is taken at Bordentown, 
 but in winter the Delaware is frozen over, and the rail- 
 way is then used through the whole distance to transport 
 the crowd that is always going and coming between the 
 commercial and financial capitals of the United States, 
 between the great mart and the exchange of the Union, 
 between the North and the South. An ice-boat lands the 
 traveller in Philadelphia, a few minutes after he has left 
 the cars at Camden. This railroad is 61 miles in length, 
 and cost 2,300,000 dollars, or 38,000 dollars a mile. It
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 257 
 
 has but one track most of the way. I met many persons 
 at Philadelphia, who remembered having been two, and 
 sometimes three long days on the road to New York ; it 
 is now an affair of seven hours, which will soon be re- 
 duced to six. Two railroads belonging to a different 
 group, of which one is completed, and the other nearly so, 
 will form, with the exception of an interval of several 
 miles, a second line across the peninsula, from New York 
 to Philadelphia. The one extends from Philadelphia to 
 Trenton, 26 miles ; the other from Jersey City, opposite 
 New York to New Brunswick, 30 miles ; if, therefore, 
 rails were laid between New Brunswick and Trenton, a 
 distance of 28 miles, over a perfectly level plain, the land 
 communication between New York and Philadelphia would 
 be complete ; but the State of New Jersey has hitherto 
 refused to authorise this connection, because it received 
 a considerable sum from the Camden and Amboy company 
 for the monopoly of the travel.* 
 
 From Philadelphia to Baltimore, the route is continued 
 by a steamboat to Newcastle, and a railroad from thence 
 to Frenchtown, across the peninsula, 16 1-4 miles long, 
 whence another steamboat takes the traveller to Baltimore, 
 in 8 or 9 hours after starting from Philadelphia. The 
 Newcastle and Frenchtown railroad cost 400,000 dollars, 
 or 24,500 dollars a mile. The navigation of the Chesa- 
 peake and Delaware is sometimes interrupted by ice, and 
 it has, therefore, been thought that it would be useful to 
 have a continuous railroad from Philadelphia ; there would 
 also be a saving of time, for the present route is some- 
 what circuitous. Different companies have undertaken 
 different portions of this work, which will pass by Wil- 
 mington and Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Sus- 
 
 * [The link between New Brunswick and Trenton has since been autho- 
 rised by the State and constructed. TRANSL.] 
 
 33
 
 258 LETTER XXI. 
 
 quehanna. The whole distance by this route is only 93 
 miles, instead of 118, the distance by the present line, and 
 the passage will occupy five cr six hours, instead of eight 
 or nine. From Baltimore southwardly two routes offer 
 themselves ; you may take the steamboat to Norfolk, a 
 distance of 200 miles, which is accomplished in 18 or 20 
 hours, whence another boat ascends the James River to 
 Richmond still more rapidly, the distance of about 135 miles 
 being passed over in 10 hours ; or you may go from Nor- 
 folk to Weldon on the Roanoke by a railroad 77 miles in 
 length, of which two thirds are completed.* 
 
 From Baltimore you may also go to Washington, by a 
 branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and thence by 
 steamboat down the Potomac to a little village, 15 miles 
 from Fredericksburg, from which a railroad is now in pro- 
 gress toi Richmond. It will be 58 miles in length, and 
 will cost; but 12,000 dollars a mile, including the engines, 
 cars, and depots. From Petersburg, 20 miles from Rich- 
 mond, a railroad extends to Blakely on the Roanoke, 60 
 miles, and the interval between Petersburg and Richmond 
 will soon be filled up. The Petersburg and Roanoke 
 railroad, which is shorter than the post-road, follows with 
 very little deviation an old Indian trail, a remarkable fact, 
 which was told me by the able engineer Mr Moncure 
 Robinson. It extends, almost entirely on the surface of 
 the ground and without embankments, through the sandy, 
 uncultivated plains, intersected by pools of stagnant water, 
 which uniformly border the sea from the Chesapeake to 
 Cape Florida, and are annually infested by the fever of the 
 country. The whole region is most admirably adapted 
 for railroads, which are constructed almost wholly of 
 wood. The surface is graded by nature, and the sandy 
 
 * [The Baltimore and Philadelphia, Fredericksburg and Roanoke, and 
 Portsmouth and Roanoke railroads have since been completed. TRANSL.]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 259 
 
 soil offers an excellent foundation for the wooden frame 
 on which the rails are placed. The still virgin forests, 
 consisting of pine and oak, afford an inexhaustible supply 
 of timber for the construction of the railways, free to who- 
 ever wishes to use it. But if the nature of the country 
 is well suited to this object, the condition of the popula- 
 tion is far from being so. In this sterile tract, the inhab- 
 itants are thinly scattered over the surface, and there are 
 only a few villages here and there on the rivers. Large 
 towns, in which alone the necessary capital would be 
 found, do not exist, and the aid of Northern capitalists has 
 been necessarily resorted to. Philadelphia capital has b.een 
 largely employed in the construction of the Petersburg 
 and Richmond railroads, and without it, the great line 
 between the South and the North, will not be continued 
 across North Carolina, one of the poorest States in the 
 confederacy, and connected with the works completed or 
 in progress in Georgia and South Carolina. 
 
 There is, therefore, a great void of 325 miles, between 
 the Roanoke and Charleston, the chief city of South Caro- 
 lina, or rather of 275 miles between the Roanoke and 
 Columbia, the capital of that State.* From Charleston, a 
 railroad 136 miles in length, extends through the unculti- 
 vated and feverish zone of sand and pine-barrens to the 
 cotton-region ; it terminates at Hamburg, on the River 
 Savannah, opposite Augusta, which is the principal inte- 
 rior cotton-market ; the cost of this work was only about 
 9,500 dollars a mile including some cars, &c. Its con- 
 struction is peculiar in this respect, that where its level is 
 above that of the surface, recourse has been had to piles 
 
 * It will be easy to construct a branch from the Charleston and Augusta 
 railroad to Columbia, and the route has been surveyed. [This branch is 
 now in progress, and as the Raleigh and Gaston railroad, from the Roanoke 
 to Raleigh, is also nearly completed, there remains only the link between 
 Raleigh and Columbia not yet undertaken. TRANSL.]
 
 260 LETTER XXI. 
 
 instead of embankments ; the railway, thus perched upon 
 stilts from 15 to 25 feet high, certainly leaves something 
 to be desired in regard to the safety of travellers, but it 
 was necessary to construct it, and to do so with a very 
 small capital, and in this respect it has been successful. 
 The receipts have already been sufficiently large to permit 
 the company gradually to substitute embankments of earth 
 for the frail props on which it formerly rested. Another 
 singular circumstance about it is, that it was constructed 
 almost entirely by slaves. This road was undertaken with 
 the purpose of diverting the cotton, which descended the 
 river Savannah to the town of the same name, from that 
 place to Charleston, and it has fully answered the expecta- 
 tations of its projectors. 
 
 From Augusta, the Georgia railroad has lately been be- 
 gun, and will traverse some of the most fertile cotton dis- 
 tricts in the State ; it will extend to Athens, a distance of 
 115 miles. To continue the line from North to South, or 
 from Boston to New Orleans, it would be necessary that 
 this railroad should be prolonged in the direction of Mont- 
 gomery, Alabama, whence a steamer takes the traveller to 
 Mobile, on the River Alabama.* Between Mobile and 
 New Orleans, there are regular lines of steamboats run- 
 ning through Mobile Bay, Pascagoula Sound, and Lakes 
 Borgne and Pontchartain. The four last miles, between 
 the latter lake and New Orleans, are passed over in a 
 quarter of an hour on a railroad, which the Louisiana 
 legislature calls in its bad French chemin a coulisses. 
 Such is the line between the North and South, of which 
 the execution is the most advanced ; it will not be the 
 
 * [A prolongation of the Georgia railroad to Decatur, 160 miles from 
 Augusta, is already in progress, and the Montgomery and Chattahoochee 
 railroad, extending from West Point on the latter to the river Alabama, 
 forms another link in the chain between Boston or rather Bangor and New 
 Orleans. TR A u SL .]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 261 
 
 only one, but as civilisation establishes itself further west 
 and capital multiplies, several new routes will be formed, 
 receding more and more from the coast. 
 
 The Baltimore and Ohio railroad is connected at Har- 
 per's Ferry with the Winchester railroad, 30 miles in 
 length, which runs up the bed of one of those long val- 
 leys that separate the successive ridges of the Alleghany 
 Mountains from each other. That in which Winchester 
 stands, is one of the most regular and fertile of these great 
 basins, and is celebrated under the name of the Virginia 
 Valley. Although, therefore, the Winchester railroad was 
 constructed only for the purpose of giving the produce of 
 Winchester and its vicinity an easy access to the market 
 of Baltimore, yet it may one day become a link in the 
 great chain of communication extending through the 
 Valley from north to south. A company has already been 
 chartered for continuing the work to Staunton, a distance 
 of 96 miles. Another line from the South to the North, 
 which will, perhaps, be connected with that of the great 
 Valley, has been projected at New Orleans, and authorised 
 by the legislatures of Louisiana and the other States through 
 whteh it will pass ; it is a railroad from New Orleans to 
 Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, and I am assured that 
 the work will soon be commenced. This line aspires to 
 nothing less than a competition with the magnificent 
 river lines of the Ohio and the Mississippi, in the trans- 
 portation of passengers and cotton. 
 
 SECT. IV. LINES RADIATING AROUND THE LARGE TOWNS. 
 
 FIRST CENTRE. BOSTON. 
 
 Three railroads extend from Boston in different direc- 
 tions ; the first, 26 miles in length, to the manufacturing 
 city of Lowell, which is thus become a suburb of Boston, 
 and the second, 44 miles in length, to Worcester, the cen-
 
 262 LETTER XXI. 
 
 tre of an important agricultural district. The former cost 
 60,000 dollars a miles, the latter 32,000. The third road 
 is the Providence railroad, already mentioned above as one 
 of the links in the great chain from north to south. The 
 Lowell railroad enters into competition with the Middle- 
 sex canal ; the Worcester road is to be continued to the 
 River Hudson, where it will terminate opposite Albany. 
 It will also be connected with the city of Hudson, 30 
 miles below Albany, by a railroad extending from West 
 Stockbridge. It will thus become to Boston a Western 
 Railroad, which name it has in fact received. A company 
 has been authorised to execute the portion between Wor- 
 cester and Springfield, a distance of 54 miles, the whole 
 distance from Boston to Albany being 160 miles.* The 
 Eastern railroad, a fourth work is about to be undertaken, 
 passing through Lynn, famous for its boots and shoes, 
 Salem, a little city which carries on an extensive trade 
 with China, Ipswich, Beverly, and Newburyport towards 
 Portland, the principal town in the northern extremity of 
 the Union. 
 
 SECOND CENTRE. NEW YORK. 
 
 Radiating from New York are, 1. The railroad to Pater- 
 son, an important manufacturing town at the falls of the 
 Passaic, 16 miles in length ; 2. The New Brunswick rail- 
 
 
 
 * During the session of 1836 the legislature of Massachusetts subscribed 
 1,000,000 in aid of the Western Railroad; this measure was the first step 
 taken by the State in the promotion of public works, and indicates a com- 
 plete revolution in its policy on this point. [This act was immediately fol- 
 lowed by similar acts in aid of the several other railroads now in progress 
 in the State, and in 1838, by a further grant of the credit of the State to the 
 Western Railroad to the amount of 1,200,000 dollars. That work will be 
 completed to Springfield in October (1839), and the section between Spring- 
 field and West Stockbridge is already far advanced towards its completion. 
 The Lowell railroad has been extended to Nashua, and an eastern branch 
 is now completed to Haverhill, of which a continuation towards Exeter is 
 now in progress. TRANSL.]
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 263 
 
 road already mentioned, which serves as a route of com- 
 munication with several important points, especially New- 
 ark, and for the transportation of provisions for the New- 
 York market from a portion of New Jersey ; 3. The 
 Harlsem railroad, almost exclusively for passengers ; and 
 4. The Brooklyn and Jamaica railroad, on Long Island, 
 12 miles in length, and designed both for pleasure excur- 
 sions, and for transporting articles of consumption to the 
 markets of New York.* 
 
 THIRD CKNTRE. PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Around Philadelphia, in addition to the great works 
 extending to Columbia, Amboy, and Baltimore, already 
 mentioned, are 1. The Trenton railroad ; 2. The Norris- 
 town and Germantown road, designed for passengers and 
 for the accommodation of some manufacturing villages, 
 such as Manayunk, 16 miles in -length ; and 3. That of 
 West Chester, a branch of the Columbia railroad, 9 miles 
 in length, designed for the supply of the markets of the 
 city. There are also several railroads running through 
 the city, of which the rails are laid on the level of the 
 street, and on which horse-cars only are used. 
 
 FOURTH CENTRE. BALTIMORE. 
 
 Beside the Baltimore and Ohio railroad with its Wash- 
 ington branch, Baltimore is also about to have a railroad 
 through York, to the Susquehanna, opposite to t Columbia, 
 the length of which will be 73 miles. The object of this 
 road is to contest with Philadelphia the commerce of the 
 valley of the Susquehanna. The Pennsylvania canal 
 
 * [To these should be added the railroads from Newark to Morristown, 
 and from Elizabethtown to Somerville, both intersecting the New Bruns- 
 wick railroad, and extending into a fine farming country. The Brooklyn 
 railroad has also been continued about 20 miles beyond Jamaica. TRANSL.]
 
 264 LETTER XXI. 
 
 with its various branches forms a canalisation of this river 
 and its tributaries above Columbia. But below Columbia, 
 there are several rapids and shoals which interrupt the 
 navigation of the river, except for down ward- bound boats 
 in the highest stages of the water. The Philadelphia 
 merchants, fearing that all the works executed at a great 
 expense by Pennsylvania, would turn out much less advanta- 
 geously for them than for the Baltimoreans, as these last 
 have, indeed, openly boasted, opposed for a long time both 
 the canalisation of the Susquehanna from Columbia to its 
 mouth, and the permission to construct that section of a 
 railroad from Baltimore to Columbia, which would lie 
 within the limits of Pennsylvania. Their opposition has, 
 however, been at last overcome, and charters have been 
 granted authorising the construction of both works. The 
 railroad company, to which Maryland has just made a 
 loan of 1,000,000 dollars, is pushing on the railway with 
 great activity. 
 
 FIFTH CENTRE. CHARLESTON. 
 
 Some short canals have been cut to facilitate the access 
 to Charleston from the interior, but they are in a bad state, 
 and are of little importance. 
 
 SIXTH CENTRE. NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 Independently of the short railway of five miles from 
 Lake Pontchartain to New Orleans, there are several other 
 works, such as the Carrolton railroad, which is a little 
 longer, and two short canals extending from the city to 
 the lake. Some cuts have also been made between the 
 lagoons and marshes of the lower Mississippi. These 
 canals, dug in a wet and muddy soil, have presented se- 
 rious difficulties in their construction ; but they are of no 
 interest in regard to extent or importance.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 265 
 
 SEVENTH CENTRE. SARATOGA. 
 
 Saratoga Springs in New York are visited for two or 
 three months in the summer, by crowds of persons who 
 throng thither in shoals. There is not a master of a 
 family of Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore, in easy 
 circumstances, who does not feel obliged to pass 24 or 48 
 hours with his wife and daughters, amidst this crowd in 
 their Sunday's best, and to visit the field where the Eng- 
 lish army under General Burgoyne surrendered its arms. 
 There are at present two railroads to Saratoga ; one from 
 Schenectady, 22 miles in length, a branch of the Albany 
 and Schenectady road, and another from Troy on the 
 Hudson, 25 miles in length. After the season is over they 
 serve for the transportation of fuel and timber. 
 
 SECTION V. WORKS CONNECTED WITH COAL-MINES. 
 
 The bituminous coal-mines of Chesterfield, near Rich- 
 mond, are connected with the river James by a short 
 railway adapted only for horses, which is 12 miles long, 
 and cost 15,000 dollars a mile, inclusive of the cars, depots, 
 &c. Once delivered at the river, the coal is easily trans- 
 ported along the whole coast, where it comes into compe- 
 tition with the English and Nova Scotia coals. 
 
 The anthracite beds of Pennsylvania have caused the 
 construction of a much more extensive series of works. 
 At present hardly any other fuel is consumed on the coast 
 for domestic and manufacturing purposes than the anthra- 
 cite, which is found only in a small section of Pennsylvania, 
 lying between the Susquehanna and the Delaware. It 
 gives a more intense and sustained heat than wood, which 
 had also become very dear, and is much better suited to 
 the rigorous winters, which are experienced in the United 
 States, under the latitude of Naples. It is also much pre- 
 ferable to the bituminous coal, which is the only sort of 
 34
 
 266 LETTER XXI. 
 
 coal in use with us ; it makes no smoke, and is much more 
 cleanly, not soiling the carpets and drapery. The fire is 
 very easily kept up, and a grate needs to be filled only two 
 or three times during the whole twentyfour hours, to 
 maintain a fire night and day. The servants, whom it 
 spares a great deal of trouble, prefer it, and on this point, 
 as on several others, their opinion is more important than 
 that of their masters. The only inconvenience attending 
 it is, that it sometimes diffuses a sulphurous smell. It is 
 also beginning to take the place of wood in the steam- 
 boats. The anthracite trade has, therefore, become con- 
 siderable, and several canals and railroads have been made 
 or are making, to transport the fuel from the mines to the 
 points of consumption. 
 
 The principal of these lines are the following : 1. 
 The Schuylkill canal, which extends from Philadelphia 
 to the vicinity of the mines about the head of the Schuyl- 
 kill. Its length from Philadelphia to Port Carbon, is 108 
 miles ; it cost, inclusive of the double locks, 3,000,000 
 dollars, or 28,000 dollars a mile, and yields a net income 
 of 20 to 25 per cent. ; 400,000 tons of coal are annually 
 brought down upon it. 2. The Lehigh canal runs from 
 the Delaware to the mines near the heads of the Lehigh ; 
 it is 46 miles long, and cost 1,560,000 dollars, or 34,000 
 dollars a mile. 3. The lateral canal along the Delaware 
 starts from Easton, at the mouth of the Lehigh, and ends 
 at Bristol, the head of navigation for sea-vessels. It trans- 
 ports to Philadelphia, the coal that is brought down the 
 Lehigh canal ; it is 60 miles long, and cost 1,238,000 dol- 
 lars, or 20",600 dollars a mile. This work was executed 
 by the State of Pennsylvania, and has been before enu- 
 merated among the State works. 4. The Morris canal 
 starts from Easton, and ends at Jersey City, opposite New 
 York. It serves to supply the New York market with 
 coal. The change of level is here for the most part
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 267 
 
 effected, not by locks, but by inclined planes, the operation 
 of which is very simple ; the length of this work is 102 
 miles, cost 2,650,000 dollars, or 25,000 dollars a mile. 5. 
 The Delaware and Hudson canal extends from the Round- 
 out creek on the Hudson, near Kingston, 90 miles above 
 New York, to the anthracite mines near the upper Dela- 
 ware. The coal is brought down to the canal, at Hones- 
 dale, from the mountains, at Carbondale, on a railroad 16 
 miles in length ; the canal is 109 miles long, and cost 
 2,250,000 dollars or 20,000 dollars a mile ; the railroad 
 cost 300,000 dollars or 17,500 dollars a mile. 6. The 
 Pottsville and Sunbury railroad is designed to bring down 
 to the Schuylkill the products of the mines lying in the 
 heart of the mountains between the Susquehanna and the 
 heads of the Schuylkill. It is remarkable for the boldness 
 of the inclined planes, some of which have an inclination 
 of 25 and 33 per cent., and which are worked by very 
 ingenious and economical contrivances. It is 45 miles in 
 length, and cost 1,120,000 dollars, or 25,000 dollars a mile. 
 7. The Philadelphia and Reading railroad, now in progress, 
 will enter into competition with the Schuylkill canal ; it 
 is 56 miles in length, and cost, including the necessary 
 apparatus, 26,300 dollars a mile. It is proposed to con- 
 tinue it to Pottsville, 35 miles from Reading ; there would 
 then be a continuous railroad from Philadelphia to the 
 centre of the Susquehanna valley. 
 
 Beside these seven great lines, several mining companies 
 have constructed various railways of less importance, 
 which branch from them in different directions. At the 
 end of 1834, there were 165 miles of these smaller works, 
 constructed at an expense of about 1,125,000 dollars, 
 which, added to the 542 miles, and 13,280,000 of the 
 seven works above enumerated, gives a total of 707 miles 
 and 14,400,000 dollars, or deducting the Delaware ca- 
 nal, which has been before reckoned, of 647 miles and 

 
 268 LETTER XXI. 
 
 13,162,000 dollars. The aggregate length of all the works 
 which I have already enumerated, including only those that 
 are finished or far advanced, is 3,025 miles of canal, and 
 1,825 miles of railroad, made at a cost of above 112 mil- 
 lions. If we add several detached works, such as the 
 Ithaca and Owego, the Lexington and Louisville, the 
 Tuscumbia and Decatur (Alabama) railroads, and various 
 canals in New England, Pennsylvania, Georgia, &c., we 
 shall have a total of 3,250 miles of canal, and 2,000 miles 
 of railroad, constructed at an expense of upwards of 120 
 million dollars. (See Note 22.) The impulse is, there- 
 fore, given, the movement goes on with increasing speed, 
 the whole country is becoming covered with works in 
 every direction. If I were to attempt to enumerate all 
 the railroads, of which the routes are under survey, which 
 have been or are on the point of being authorised by char- 
 ters from the several legislatures, for which the subscrip- 
 tion is about to be opened, or has already been filled up, I 
 should be obliged to mention all the towns in the Union. 
 A town of 10,000 inhabitants, which has not its railroad, 
 looks upon itself with that feeling of shame, which our 
 first parents experienced in the terrestrial paradise, when, 
 after having eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, 
 they saw that they were naked. 
 
 I have here spoken of the more perfect means of inter- 
 communication, canals and railroads, and not of common 
 roads. If I had undertaken to speak of these, I should 
 have mentioned at their head, the great work called the 
 National or Cumberland road, which, starting from Wash- 
 ington, or strictly speaking, from Cumberland, on the 
 Potomac, strikes the Ohio at Wheeling, and extends west- 
 wards, across the centre of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to 
 the Mississippi ; it has been constructed wholly at the 
 expense of the Federal government, and up to the present 
 time there have been expended upon it 5,400,000 dollars.
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 269 
 
 It was begun in 1806, and is now nearly finished to Van- 
 dalia in Illinois. A dispute between Illinois and Missouri 
 in respect to its termination, has delayed the completion of 
 the last division. From Washington to Vandalia, the 
 distance is 800 miles, and from Cumberland to Vandalia, 
 675 miles. The doctrine of the unconstitutionality of 
 Congress engaging in internal improvements having pre- 
 vailed since the accession of General Jackson to the presi- 
 dency, Congress has offered the National Road to the 
 States within which it lies, and they have accepted it on 
 condition of its being first put in a state of perfect repair. 
 Several of the States have also spent considerable sums in 
 improving the condition of their roads ; South Carolina, 
 for instance, has devoted about a million and a half to this 
 object. 
 
 The public works of the United States are generally 
 managed with economy, as the statements above made 
 testify ; for the cost has been much less than that of similar 
 works in Europe, although the wages of labour are two 
 or three times higher than on the old continent. The 
 canals constructed by the States are, nevertheless, pretty 
 weir finished; their dimensions are less that those of our 
 canals, but greater than those of England ; the locks are 
 almost always of hewn stone.* The bridges, viaducts, 
 and aqueducts are generally wooden superstructures rest- 
 ing on abutments and piers of common masonry. The 
 river-dams are always of wood. The railroads constructed 
 by the States, those of Pennsylvania in particular, have 
 been built at a great expense ; they have a double track 
 with stone viaducts and some tunnels ; the rails are wholly 
 of iron, resting on stone blocks or sleepers. The Lowell 
 
 * On some of the canals the locks are partly of wood and partly of stone ; 
 these composite locks are economical and easily kept in repair, and deserve 
 to be introduced in other countries. On many canals the locks are wholly 
 of wood.
 
 270 LETTER XXI. 
 
 railroad company also wished to have their road constructed 
 in the most solid manner, and have displayed a luxury of 
 granite, which, if not injurious, is certainly superfluous. 
 The Baltimore and Ohio railroad has two tracks, but except 
 for a short distance is on wood. In the Northern States 
 and near the large towns most of the railroads have an 
 iron edge rail and a roadway prepared for two tracks, but 
 with only one track laid. Such are the Worcester, Prov- 
 idence, and Amboy railways, and such will be the Phila- 
 delphia and Reading road ; but the rails rest upon wooden 
 cross-pieces, which, independently of their cheapness, have 
 some advantage over the stone sleepers, in regard to 
 wear of the cars, superior ease of motion, and greater faci- 
 lity of repairs. Those railroads in the North on which 
 there is less travel, and which are more remote from the 
 large towns, and all those of the South, have but a single 
 track, with no preparation for a second, and consist of an 
 iron bar, about two inches wide and half an inch thick, 
 resting on longitudinal sleepers. 
 
 On most of the American railroads, the inclinations are 
 much greater than what in Europe are usually considered 
 the maxima. A rise of 35 feet to the mile, for instance, 
 seems moderate to American engineers, and even 50 feet 
 does not frighten them. Experience has shown that these 
 inclinations, the latter of which is double of the maximum 
 established by our engineers, do not endanger the safety 
 of travellers. They do, indeed, diminish the rate of speed, 
 unless additional power is applied at certain points, to 
 increase the force of traction ; but the Americans think 
 that these inconveniences are more than overborne by the 
 reduction of the first cost of construction. The curves 
 are also greater ; on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, on 
 which locomotives are used, there are several with a radius 
 of 400 or 500 feet, but the consequence is, that on this 
 road the mean rate of speed does not exceed 12 or 13 miles
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 271 
 
 an hour, only half as great as that on the Liverpool 
 railroad, but twice as great as that of a coach on an ordi- 
 nary road, tn general, however, the American engineers 
 endeavour to avoid curves of less than 1000 feet radius. 
 In France the Board of Public Works (Fonts et chaussees), 
 in their surveys and plans, have fixed upon 2.700 feet as 
 the minimum. 
 
 On some of the American railroads, however, even the 
 rules of European science have been exceeded ; on the 
 Lowell railroad the minimum radius is 3,000 feet ; on the 
 Boston and Providence railroad there is no curve of a less 
 radius than 6,000 feet. The rate of velocity on the 
 American railroads is as various as the manner of their 
 construction, and the amount of their inclinations and 
 curvatures. On the Boston and Lowell road the rate is 
 nearly 25 miles an hour, on the Boston and Providence 
 and Worcester roads it is about 20 miles ; on the Camden 
 and Amboy railroad the mean velocity has been reduced 
 to 15 miles ; on the Charleston and Augusta road, it is 
 only about 12, and it is still less on the Baltimore and 
 Ohio railway. 
 
 One of the chief means of economy in the construction 
 of these works in this country, is the use of wood for 
 bridges. The Americans are unequalled in the art of con- 
 structing wooden bridges ; those of Switzerland, about 
 which so much as been said, are clumsy and heavy com- 
 pared with theirs. The American bridges have arches of 
 100 and 200 feet span,* and they are not less remarkable 
 for their cheapness, than for their boldness. The bridge 
 over the Susquehanna at Columbia is 6,000 feet long and 
 cost 130,000 dollars ; it is roofed over, has two carriage- 
 
 * The bridge over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia consists of a single 
 arch of 300 feet span. [This beautiful structure has lately been destroyed 
 by fire. TRANSL.]
 
 272 LETTER XXI. 
 
 ways and two side-ways for foot passengers. In general 
 the wooden superstructure of a covered bridge, with a 
 double carriage way, may be built at the rate of 8,000 to 
 14,000 dollars, according to the locality and the character 
 of the work, per 600 feet ; a similar structure with us 
 would be built of hewn stone, and would cost at least 
 200,000 to 300,000 dollars. The masonry is generally of 
 uncut stone, or of undressed hewn stone, and is not, there- 
 fore, expensive. Three different plans are followed in the 
 construction of bridges ; one is that of a carpenter Burr, a 
 second that of Col. Long, and the third, which is the new- 
 est, most interesting, and most suitable for railroads, on 
 account of its firmness, is that of Mr Town ; they are all 
 remarkable for requiring scarcely any iron. There are, 
 however, some bridges of hewn stone on the American 
 railroads ; such is the Thomas Viaduct over the Patapsco, 
 on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, wholly of fine granite ; 
 it is 700 feet long, and cost only 120,000 dollars, although 
 it has two road-ways, and is 60 feet high. 
 
 The greatest difficulty which the Americans encountered 
 in the execution of their public works, was not to procure 
 the necessary capital, but to find men capable of directing 
 operations. In this respect also, New York has done the 
 Uraon signal service ; the engineers, who were formed by 
 the construction of the Erie canal, have diffused the bene- 
 fits of the experience acquired in that work, over the 
 whole country. Mr Wright, the most eminent among 
 them, and still the most active of American engineers, 
 notwithstanding his advanced age, has been engaged in 
 the superintendence of an inconceivable number of under- 
 takings.* His name is associated with the construction 
 
 * At this very time, Mr Wright, in spite of his 60 years, is directing in 
 person the Harlaem railroad, the great New York and Erie road, the great 
 work of connecting the James and Kanawha, by a railroad and canal, the 
 works going on along the St. Lawrence in Upper Canada, 750 miles further
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 273 
 
 of canals from the Chesapeake to the Ohio, from the Dela- 
 ware to the Chesapeake, from the Hudson to the Delaware, 
 from the James to the Kanawha, on the St. Lawrence, 
 and even on the Welland, as well as with those of the 
 railroads just mentioned. Within the last ten years the 
 number of able engineers in the United States has become 
 considerable, and they have written the records of their 
 skill and science on the soil of their country. General 
 Bernard contributed not a little to this result, by carrying 
 with him into the New World the most improved processes 
 of European art, and setting an example of their applica- 
 tion. Mr Moncure Robinson, also a pupil of the French 
 schools of science, who excels in the art of combining 
 great economy with great solidity and neatness of execu- 
 tion, has constructed the inclined planes of the Portage 
 Railroad over the Alleghany, and has built the Chester- 
 field, Petersburg and Roanoke, the Little Schuylkill, and 
 the Winchester railroads ; he is, at present, engaged on the 
 Pottsville and Sunbury, the Philadelphia and Reading, 
 and the Fredericksburg and Richmond roads. Major Mc- 
 Neil has just finished the Boston and Providence railway, 
 and is engaged on the Stonington and the Baltimore and 
 Susqnehanna roads. Mr Douglass, after having completed 
 the Morris canal, and the Brooklyn and Jamaica railroad, 
 is preparing, for the coming season, the operations on the 
 New York water-works. Mr Fessenden, who has executed 
 the Worcester railroad, is now engaged on the Eastern and 
 Western railroads on the right and left of Boston. Mi- 
 Knight, the principal engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio 
 railroad, is occupied in devising plans for topping the Alle- 
 
 north, and the railway from Havana to Guines in the islands of Cuba. 
 The aggregate length of all these works is 870 miles. The most eminent 
 engineers have always several works under their direction at once ; it is 
 understood, of course, that they are aided by skilful and intelligent assistants' 
 who do most of the work. 
 
 35
 
 274 LETTER XXI. 
 
 ghanies. The late Mr Canvass White assisted in the con- 
 struction of the Louisville and Portland canal, and had 
 finished the fine canal from the Raritan to the Delaware, 
 not long before his death. Mr Allen has built the Charles- 
 ton and Augusta railroad. Mr Jervis, who is now directing 
 a part of the great works of canalisation in New York, 
 constructed the Carbondale and Honesdale road. 
 
 To supply the want of men of science, demanded by 
 the spirit of enterprise, the Federal government authorises 
 the officers of the engineer corps and of the topographical 
 engineers to enter into the service of the companies. It 
 also employs them itself, in surveying routes and preparing 
 plans, or constructing works on its own account. General 
 Gratiot, the chief engineer, therefore, performs the duties 
 of president of a board of public works (directeur-general 
 desponts et chaussees]. Cols. Albert and Kearney of the 
 topographical engineers, take an active part in the con- 
 struction of the great canal from the Chesapeake to the 
 Ohio, of which the Federal government is the principal 
 shareholder. Capt. Turnbull superintends the canal from 
 Georgetown to Alexandria ; Capt. Delafield the works on 
 the National Road, and Capt. Talcott the improvements of 
 the navigation of the Hudson. Col. Long passes from 
 route to route, and conducts at one time the surveys from 
 Memphis to Savannah, at another those from Portland to 
 Montreal and Q,uebec. On the other hand, architects be- 
 come engineers, and Mr Strickland of Philadelphia, and 
 Mr Latrobe of Baltimore, superintend the construction of 
 the railroad between these two cities ; and even simple 
 merchants take upon themselves the responsibility of great 
 works, as in the case of Mr Jackson of Boston, who is in 
 fact, chief engineer of the Lowell railroad. 
 
 The spectacle of a young people, executing, in the short 
 space of fifteen years, a series of works, which the most 
 powerful States of Europe with a population three or four
 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION. 275 
 
 times as great, would have shrunk from undertaking, is in 
 truth a noble sight. The advantages which result from 
 these enterprises to the public prosperity are incalculable, 
 and the political effects are not less important. These nu- 
 merous routes, which are traversed with so much ease and 
 speed, will contribute to the maintenance^of the Union 
 more than a regularly balanced national representation. 
 When New York shall be only six or eight days -from 
 New Orleans, not merely for a class of the rich and privi- 
 leged, but for every citizen, every labourer, a separation 
 will be impossible. Distance will be annihilated, and this 
 colossuSj ten times greater than France, will preserve its 
 unity without an effort.* 
 
 It is impossible not to turn back my thoughts to Europe, 
 and to make a comparison by no means favorable to the 
 great kingdoms which occupy it. The partisans of the 
 monarchical principle maintain, that it is as powerful 
 in promoting the greatness and. welfare of peoples, and 
 the progress of the human race, as the principle of indepen- 
 dence and self-government, which prevails on this side the 
 Atlantic. For myself, I believe them to be in the right ; 
 but it is necessary that some tangible proofs of the cor- 
 rectness of their opinion should be given, if we do not 
 wish that the contrary doctrine should make proselytes. 
 It is by the fruits that the tree must be judged. Now the 
 European governments dispose of the property and the 
 
 *The lowest rate of speed on a railroad can be hardly less than 15 miles 
 an hour, or about three times greater than the ordinary speed of the stage- 
 coaches in France and America. At this rate, a country with railroads, 
 nine times larger than France, would be on the same footing in respect to 
 intercommunication, as France without railroads ; supposing a velocity of 
 25 miles an hour, or five times greater than that of the coaches, the propor- 
 tion would then stand as one to twentyfive, and a territory four and a half 
 times greater than western Europe, or five times greater than that included 
 within the limits of the 27 States, would be as easily and as promptly admin- 
 istered as France is at present.
 
 276 LETTER XXII. 
 
 persons of more than 250 millions of men, that is, of a 
 population twenty times more numerous than that of the 
 United States at the time these great works were begun. 
 The extent of territory which demands their care, is not 
 quite four times as great as that at present occupied by the 
 States and the organised Territories. The millions which 
 the European nations raise so easily for war, that is to say, 
 to destroy and slaughter each other, would not certainly 
 be wanting to their princes for the execution of useful 
 enterprises. The latter have only to will it, and all the 
 peoples of Europe will be so completely blended together 
 in interests, feelings, and opinions, that the whole conti- 
 nent would be like a single state, and a European war 
 would be looked upon as no less sacrilegious than a civil 
 war. By putting off the day of these useful works, do 
 not the sovereigns give countenance to the reasonings of 
 those, who assert that the cause of kings is irreconcileable 
 with the cause of nations ? 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 LABOUR. 
 
 LANCASTER, (PENNSYLVANIA,) JULY 20, 1835. 
 
 THERE can be no success without special devotion to 
 some one end ; individual or nation, to be successful and 
 prosperous, beware of attempting every thing. Human 
 nature is finite, and, like it, you must set some bounds to 
 your wishes and efforts. Learn how to check yourself and 
 to be content, is the precept of wisdom. If it is a wise rule,
 
 LABOUR. 277 
 
 then are the Americans, at least partially, wise, for they 
 practise it partially. In general, the American is little 
 disposed to be contented ; his idea of equality is to be 
 inferior to none, but he endeavours to rise only in one 
 direction. His only means, and the object of his whole 
 thought, is to subdue the material world, or, in other 
 words, it is industry in its various branches, business, 
 speculation, work, action. To this sole object every thing 
 is made subordinate, education, politics, private and public 
 life. Every thing in American society, from religion and 
 morals to domestic usages and daily habits of life, is bent 
 in the direction of this common aim of each and all. If 
 there are some exceptions to this general rule, they are 
 few, and may be referred to two causes ; first, American 
 society, exclusive as it is, is not destined to remain forever 
 imprisoned in this narrow circle, and it already contains 
 the germs of its future condition ages hence, whatever 
 that may be ; and secondly, human nature, although 
 bounded, is not exclusive, and no force in the world can 
 stifle its eternal protest against exclusiveness in taste, insti- 
 tutions, and manners. Speculation and business, work 
 and action, these, then, under various forms, make the 
 exclusive object to which the Americans have devoted 
 themselves, with a zeal that amounts to fanaticism ; this 
 was marked out for them by the finger of Providence, in 
 order that a continent should be brought under the domin- 
 ion of civilisation with the least possible delay. 
 
 I cannot reflect without sorrow, that at one moment 
 France seem called to take part in this great mission with 
 the two nations, between whom God has placed it, not 
 less morally in regard to character and institutions, than 
 physically in respect to geographical position ; namely the 
 English and Spaniards. Whilst Spain, then queen of the 
 world, grasped South America and the vast empire of 
 Mexico, civilised, sword in hand, the native tribes, and
 
 278 LETTER XXII. 
 
 built those monumental cities, which will bear witness to 
 its genius and its power, ages after the calumnies of 
 its slanderers shall have been forgotten, whilst England was 
 planting some insignificant colonies on the barren shore of 
 North America, France was exploring the vast basin of 
 the Father of Waters, and taking possession of the St. Law- 
 rence, compared with which our Rhine, tranquille etfier, 
 is but a modest rivulet : we were crowning with fortifica- 
 tions the steep rock of Quebec, building Montreal, found- 
 ing New Orleans and St. Louis, and here and there subdu- 
 ing the rich plains of Illinois. At that time, we were 
 occupying the most fertile, best watered, and finest portion 
 of North America, the part best suited to become the seat 
 of a magnificent empire, in harmony with our notions of 
 unity. Our engineers, with a sagacity for which the 
 Americans now express the greatest admiration, had 
 marked out by fortresses, the sites most suitable for large 
 towns. Our flag floated over Pittsbug, then Fort Du- 
 quesne, Detroit, Chicago, Erie, then Presqu'ile, Kingston, 
 then Fort Frontenac. Michillimackinac, Ticonderoga, Vin- 
 cennes, Fort Charters, Peoria, and St. John, as well as 
 over the capitals of Canada, and Louisiana. Then our 
 language might have set up its claim to be the universal 
 language ; the French name bade fair to become the first, 
 not only in the world of ideas, by art and letters, like the 
 Greek ; but also in the material and political world, by the 
 number of individuals who would take pride in bearing it, 
 by the immensity of the territory over which its dominion 
 stretched, like the Roman. Louis XIV. in the days of his 
 deification, in the Olympus which he had built himself, 
 meditated this noble destiny for his people and his race. 
 With a lofty pride, he seemed to read their future triumphs 
 on the pages of fate. But there is left to us, who are sep- 
 arated from him only by a single century, there is left, 
 alas ! nought ljut vain and impotent regrets. The English
 
 LABOUR. 279 
 
 have driven us forever, not only from America, but also 
 from the East Indies, where that great prince had given 
 us a footing. The descendants of our fathers in Canada 
 and Louisiana struggle in vain against the British flood 
 that swallows them up ; our language is whelmed in the 
 same deluge ; even our names for the cities we founded 
 and the regions we discovered, are corrupted in the harsh 
 throats of our fortunate rivals, and are too Saxonised to be 
 any longer recognised. We have ourselves forgotten, that 
 there was ever a time when we could have claimed to rule 
 the New World ; we no longer remember the generous men 
 who devoted themselves, that they might secure the do- 
 minion to us. To preserve the name of the heroic La 
 Salle from oblivion, it has become necessary that the 
 American Congress should raise a monument to his 
 memory in the .rotunda of the Capital, between those to 
 William Penn and John Smith. We have had no stone 
 for him among all our innumerable sculptures ; our paint- 
 ers have covered miles of canvass with their colours, 
 but have not drawn a line in honour of him. 
 
 Meanwhile, the gigantic upstarts of Europe. defy us, 
 elbow us, and crowd us in. In vain did the genius of the 
 the second Charlemagne restore to us the capital of the first 
 Frank Kaisar, and the finest provinces of Clovis ; capital 
 and provinces have been snatched from us almost imme- 
 diately. One step more downward, and we should have 
 been forever forced back among the secondary states, the 
 worn out and decrepit nations, with no successors to receive 
 and sustain with honor the inheritance of our fathers' glo- 
 ries. What is it that has thus degraded a great people, 
 and robbed it of its well-earned future ? In an absolute 
 monarchy like ours, it was enough, that we should be rid- 
 den by such a prince as Louis XV., who had inherited 
 nothing from his great ancestor but his vices ; it was 
 enough, that during fifty years, France was the play-thing
 
 280 LETTER XXII. 
 
 of his infamous selfishness, and of the shameful imbecili- 
 ty of his creatures. Absolute governments may some- 
 times produce 1 wonders in a short space of time, but they 
 are exposed to cruel reverses. Had we been the conquer- 
 ors in America, instead of having been conquered by the 
 English, what would have been the consequences ? To 
 judge what the people of New France would have been, by 
 what the Canadians and the Creoles of Louisiana are, the 
 boldness and rapidity of the progress of civilisation would 
 have been much less than it has been. When it is pro- 
 posed to conquer nations on the field of battle, France 
 may enter the lists with confidence ; but when it is pro- 
 posed to subdue nature, the Englishman is our superior. 
 He has firmer sinews and more vigorous muscle ; physi- 
 cally he is better made for labour ; he carries it on with 
 more perseverance and method ; he becomes interested in 
 it, and obstinately bent upon it. If he meets any obstacle 
 in his task, he attacks it with the devouring passion which 
 a Frenchman can feel only in the presence of an adversary 
 in a human form. 
 
 With what zeal arid devotion has the Anglo-American 
 fulfilled his mission as a pioneer in a new continent ! Be- 
 hold how he makes his way over the rocks and precipices 
 see how he struggles in close fight with the rivers, with 
 the swamps, with the primeval forests j see how he slaugh- 
 ters the wolf and the bear, how he exterminates the Indian, 
 who in his eyes is only another wild beast ! In this con- 
 flict with the external world, with the land and the 
 waters, with mountains and pestilential marshes, he appears 
 full of that impetuosity with which Greece flung itself 
 into Asia at the voice of Alexander ; of that fanatical da- 
 ring with which Mahomet inspired his Arabs for the con- 
 quest of the Eastern Empire ; of that delirious courage 
 which animated our fathers forty years ago, when they 
 threw themselves upon Europe. On the same rivers,
 
 LABOUR. 281 
 
 therefore, on which our colonists floated, carelessly sing- 
 ing, in the bark canoe of the savage, they have launched 
 fleets of superb steamers. Where we fraternised with the 
 Red Skins, sleeping with them in the forests, living like 
 them on the chase, travelling, in their manner, through 
 ragged trails afoot, the persevering American has felled the 
 aged trees, guided the plough, inclosed the fields, substi- 
 tuted the best breeds of English cattle for the wild deer, 
 created farms, flourishing villages, and opulent cities, dug 
 canals, and made roads. Those waterfalls which we ad- 
 mired as lovers of the picturesque, and the height of 
 which our officers measured at the risk of their lives, he 
 has shut up for the use of his mills and factories, regard- 
 less of the scenery. If these countries had continued to 
 belong to the French, the population would certainly have 
 been more gay than the present American race ; it would 
 have enjoyed more highly, whatever it should have pos- 
 sessed, but it would have had less of comfort and wealth, 
 and ages would have passed away, before man had become 
 master of those regions, which have been reclaimed in 
 less than fifty years by the Americans. 
 
 If we examine the acts passed by the local legislatures 
 at each session, we shall find that at least three-fourths 
 relate to the banks, which give credit to the working 
 men ; to the establishment of new religious societies and 
 churches, which are the citadels where the guardians of 
 industry keep watch ; to routes and means of communi- 
 cation, roads, canals, railways, bridges, and steamboats, 
 which facilitate the access of the producer to the markets ; 
 to primary instruction for the use of the mechanic and the 
 labourer ; to various commercial regulations ; or to the in- 
 corporation of towns and villages, the work of these hardy 
 pioneers. There is no mention of an army ; the fine arts 
 are not so much as named ; literary institutions and the 
 higher scientific studies are rarely honoured with notice. 
 36
 
 282 LETTER XXII. 
 
 The tendency of the laws is above all to promote indus- 
 try, material labour, the task of the moment. In the older 
 States, they always profess the greatest respect for proper- 
 ty, because the legislature feels that the greatest encourage- 
 ment to industry is to respect its fruits. They are especi- 
 ally conservative of landed property, either from a linger- 
 ing remembrance of the feudal laws of the mother country, 
 or because they are anxious to preserve some element of 
 stability in the midst of the general change ; yet the laws 
 generally pay less regard to the rights of property than is 
 the case in Europe. Wo to whatever is inactive and un- 
 productive, if it can be accused, on however slight a foun- 
 dation, of resting upon monopoly and privilege ! The 
 rights of industry here have the precedence of all others, 
 efface all others, and it is on this account, that, except in 
 in the affair of public credit, in which the towns and 
 States pique themselves on the most scrupulous exactness 
 in fulfilling their engagements, in every dispute between 
 the capitalists and the producer, the latter has almost 
 always the better. 
 
 Every thing is here arranged to facilitate industry ; the 
 towns are built on the English plan ; men of business, 
 instead of being scattered over the towri r occupy a parti- 
 cular quarter, which is devoted exclusively to them, in 
 which there is not a building used as a dwelling-house, 
 and nothing but offices and ware-houses are to be seen. 
 The brokers, bankers, and lawyers here have their cells, 
 the merchants their counting-rooms ; here the banks, 
 insurance offices, and other companies, have their cham- 
 bers, and other buildings are filled from cellar to garret 
 with articles of merchandise. At any hour, one merchant 
 has but a few steps to go after any other, after a broker or 
 a lawyer. This, it will be seen, is not according to the 
 Paris fashion, by which a great deal of precious time is 
 lost by men of business in running after one another ; in
 
 LABOUR. 283 
 
 this respect, Paris is the worst arranged commercial city 
 in the world. New York is, however inferior in this par* 
 ticular to London, or Liverpool ; it has nothing like the 
 great docks and the Commercial House. 
 
 The manners and customs are altogether those of a 
 working, busy society. At the age of fifteen years, a man 
 is engaged in business ; at twentyone he is established, 
 he has his farm, his workshop, his counting-room, or his 
 office, in a word his employment, whatever it may be. 
 He now also takes a wife, and at twenty two is the father 
 of a family, and consequently has a powerful stimulus to 
 excite him to industry. A man who has no profession, 
 and, which is nearly the same thing, who is not married, 
 enjoys little consideration ; he, who is an active and use- 
 ful member of society, who contributes his share to aug- 
 ment the national wealth and increase the numbers of the 
 population, he only is looked upon with respect .and favour. 
 The American is educated with the idea that he will have 
 some particular occupation, that he is to be a farmer, arti- 
 san, manufacturer, merchant, speculator, lawyer, physician, 
 or minister, perhaps all in succession, and that, if he is 
 active and intelligent, he will make his fortune. He has no 
 conception of living without a profession, even when his 
 family is rich, for he sees nobody about him, not engaged 
 in business. The man of leisure is a variety of the human 
 species, of which the Yankee does not suspect the exist- 
 ence, and he knows that if rich to-day, his father may be 
 ruined tomorrow. Besides the father himself is engaged 
 in business, according to custom, and does not think ,of 
 dispossessing himself of his fortune ; if the son wishes to 
 have one at present, let him make it himself ! 
 
 The habits of life are those of an exclusively working 
 people. From the moment he gets up, the American is 
 at his work, and he is engaged in it till the hour of sleep. 
 Pleasure is never permitted to interrupt his business ; pub-
 
 . 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 lie affairs only have the right to occupy a few moments. 
 Even meal-time is not for him a period of relaxation, in 
 which his wearied mind seeks repose in the bosom of his 
 friends ; it is only a disagreeable interruption of business, 
 an interruption to which he yields because it cannot be 
 avoided, but which he abridges as much as possible. In 
 the evening, if no political meeting requires his attendance, 
 if he does not go to discuss some question of public inter- 
 est, or to a religious meeting, he sits at home, thoughtful 
 and absorbed in his meditations, whether on the transac- 
 tions of the day or the projects of the morrow. He re- 
 frains from business on Sunday, because his religion com- 
 mands it, but it also requires him to abstain from all 
 amusement and recreation, music, cards, dice, or billiards, 
 under penalty of sacrilege. On Sunday an American 
 would not venture to receive his friends ; his servants 
 would not consent to it, and he can hardly secure their 
 services for himself, at their own hour, on that day. A 
 few days since, the mayor of New York was accused by 
 one of the newspapers of having entertained on Sunday 
 some English noblemen, who came out in their own 
 yacht to give the American democracy a strange idea of 
 British tastes. The mayor hastened to declare publicly, 
 that he was too well acquainted with his duties as a 
 Christian to entertain his friends on the Sabbath. Nothing 
 is therefore, more melancholy than the seventh day in 
 this country ; after such a Sunday, the labour of Monday 
 is a delightful pastime. 
 
 Approach an English merchant in his counting-room in 
 the morning, and you will find him stiff and dry, answer- 
 ing you only by monosyllables ; accost him at the hour of 
 closing the mails, he will be at no pains to conceal his im- 
 patience ; he will dismiss you without always taking care 
 to do it politely. The same man, in his drawing-room in 
 the evening, or at his country-house in summer, will be
 
 LABOUR. 285 
 
 full of courtesy and attention towards you. The English- 
 man divides his time, and does but one thing at once ; in 
 the morning he is wholly absorbed in business ; in the 
 evening he plays the man of leisure, reposing and enjoy- 
 ing life ; he is a gentleman, having before his eyes, in the 
 English aristocracy, a perfect model to form his manners, 
 and to teach him how to spend -his fortune with dignity 
 and grace. The modern Frenchman is a confused mix- 
 ture of the Englishman of the evening and the English- 
 man of the morning ; in the morning a little of the for- 
 mer, in the evening a little of the latter. The old French 
 model was the former, or rather, to do each one justice, 
 was the original after which the English aristocracy has 
 formed itself. The American of the North and the North- 
 west, whose character now gives the tone in the United 
 States, is permanently a man of business, he is always 
 the Englishman of the morning. You find many of the 
 Englishmen of the evening on the plantations of the 
 South, and some are beginning to be met with in the great 
 cities of the North. 
 
 Tall, slender, and light of figure, the American seems 
 built expressly for labour ; he has ho equal for despatch of 
 business. Nobody also can conform so easily to new situ- 
 ations and circumstances ; he is always ready to adopt 
 new processes and implements, or to change his occupation. 
 He is a mechanic by nature ; among us there is not a 
 schoolboy who has not made a vaudeville, a ballad, or a 
 republican or monarchial constitution ; in Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut, there is not a labourer who has not in- 
 vented a machine or a tool. There is not a man of much 
 consideration, who has not his scheme for a railroad, a 
 project for a village or a town, or who has not in petto 
 some grand speculation in the drowned lands of Red 
 River, in the cotton lands of the Yazoo, or in the corn 
 fields of Illinois. Eminently a pioneer, the American who
 
 286 LETTER XXII. 
 
 is not more or less Europeanised, the pure Yankee, in a 
 word, is not only a working man, but he is a migratory 
 one. He has no root in the soil, he has no feeling of 
 reverence, and love for the natal spot and the paternal roof ; 
 he is always disposed to emigrate, always ready to start in 
 the first steamer that comes along, from the place where 
 he had but just now landed. He is devoured with a pas- 
 sion for locomotion, he cannot stay in one place ; he must 
 go and come, he must stretch his limbs and keep his muscles 
 in play. When his feet are not in motion, his fingers 
 must be in action, he must be whittling a piece of wood, 
 cutting the back of his chair, or notching the edge of the 
 table, or his jaws must be at work grinding tobacco. 
 Whether it be that a continual competition has given him 
 the habit, or that he has an exaggerated estimate of the 
 value of time, or that the unsettled state of everything 
 around him, keeps his nervous system in a state of perpe- 
 tual agitation, or that he has come thus from the hands of 
 nature, he always has something to be done, he is always 
 in a terrible hurry. He is fit for all sorts of work, except 
 those which require slow and minute processes. The 
 idea of these fills him with horror ; it is his hell. " We 
 are born in haste," says an American writer, " we finish 
 our education on the run ; we marry on the wing ; we 
 make a fortune at a stroke, and lose it in the same manner, 
 to make and lose it again ten times over, in the twinkling 
 of an eye. Our body is a locomotive, going at the rate of 
 twentyfive miles an hour ; our soul, a high-pressure en- 
 gine ; oui- life is like a shooting star, and death overtakes 
 us at last like a flash of lightning."* 
 
 * In the hotels and on board the steamboats, the door of the eating-room 
 is beset by a crowd on the approach of a meal-time. As soon as the bell 
 sounds, there is a general rush into the room, and in less than ten minutes 
 every place is occupied. In a quarter of an 'hour, out of 300 persons, 200 
 have left the table, and in ten minutes more not an individual is to be seen.
 
 LABOUR. 287 
 
 " Work," says American society to the poor man ; 
 " work, and at eighteen years of age, although a mere 
 workman, you shall get more than a captain in Europe. 
 You shall live in plenty, be well-clothed, well-lodged, and 
 be able to lay up a part of your earnings. Be attentive to 
 your work, be sober and religious, and you will find a 
 devoted and submissive partner of your fortunes ; you 
 shall have a more comfortable home, than many of the 
 higher classes of the commonalty in Europe. From a 
 journeyman, you will become a master ; you will have 
 apprentices and dependents under you in turn ; you shall 
 have credit without stint ; you shall become a manufactu- 
 rer or agriculturist on a great scale ; you shall speculate 
 and become rich ; you shall found a town and give it your 
 own name ; you shall be a member of the legislature of 
 the State, or alderman of the city, and finally member of 
 Congress ; your son will have as good a chance to be made 
 President as the son of the President himself. Work, and 
 if the fortune of business should be against you, and you 
 fall, you will soon be able to rise again ; for a failure is 
 nothing but a wound in battle ; it will not deprive you of 
 the esteem or confidence of any one, if you have always 
 been prudent and temperate, a good Christian and a faithful 
 husband." 
 
 On my passage from Baltimore to Norfolk, in the winter of 1834, 1 found 
 that, notwithstanding the cold, three fourths of the passengers had risen at 
 4 o'clock, and at six, being almost the only person left abed, and feeling 
 sure that we must be near our port, I got up, and went upon deck; but it 
 was not until eight o'clock, that we came in sight of Norfolk. On mention- 
 ing the fact afterward to an American, a man of sense, who was on board 
 at the same time, and who, wiser than I, had lain abed till after sunrise ; 
 *' Ah, sir," said he, " if you knew my countrymen better, you wouldn't be 
 at all surprised at their getting up at four o'clock, with the intention of arri- 
 ving at nine. An American is always on the lookout lest any of his neigh- 
 bours should get the start of him. If one hundred Americans were going 
 to be shot, they would contend for the priority, so strong is their habit of 
 competition."
 
 288 LETTER XXII. 
 
 " Work," it says to the rich, " work, and do not stop ta 
 think of enjoying your wealth. You shall increase your 
 income without increasing your expenses ; you shall en- 
 large you fortune, but it will be only to increase the 
 sources of labour for the poor, and to extend your power 
 over the material world. Be simple and severe in your 
 exterior, but at home you may have the richest carpets, 
 plate in abundance, the finest linens of Ireland and Sax- 
 ony ; externally your house shall be on the same model 
 with all the others of the town ; you shall have neither 
 livery nor equipage ; you shall not patronise the theatre, 
 which tends to relax morals ; you shall avoid play ; you 
 shall sign the articles and pledges of the Temperance 
 Society ; you shall not even indulge in good cheer ; you 
 shall set an example of constant attendance at church j 
 you shall always show the most profound respect for mor- 
 als and religion, for the farmer and mechanic around you 
 have their eyes fixed upon you ; they take you for their 
 pattern, they still acknowledge you to be the arbiter of 
 manners and customs, although they have taken from you 
 the political sceptre. If you give yourself up to pleasure, 
 to parade, to amusement, to dissipation and luxury, they 
 also will give the reins to their gross appetites and their 
 violent passions. Your country will be ruined, and you 
 will be ruined with it." 
 
 It is possible to imagine various social systems differ- 
 ently organised but equally favourable, theoretically, to 
 the promotion of industry. We may imagine a society 
 organised for labour under the influence of the princi- 
 ple of authority ; that is, a society composed of a grada- 
 tion of ranks ; we may conceive another constituted under 
 the auspices of the principle of liberty or independence. 
 To organise a priori, for purposes of industry, any given 
 people, it is necessary, under penalty of engendering a 
 Utopian scheme, to consult the circumstances of its origin
 
 LABUOR. 289 
 
 and the condition of its territory, to know whence and 
 how it has come, and whither it is going. With the peo- 
 ple of the United States, a scion of the English stock, 
 and thoroughly imbued with Protestantism, the principle of 
 independence, of individualism, of competition, in fine, 
 could not but be successful. The iron hearts of the Pu- 
 ritans, the Ultras of Protestantism, could not fail to find 
 this principle congenial to them. It is owing to this 
 course that the sons of New England, which was peopled 
 by the Pilgrims, have played the chief part in the occu- 
 pation of the great valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 The civilisation of the West* has sprung from the 
 secret and silent cooperation of two or three hundred 
 thousand young farmers, who started, each on his own 
 account, from New England, often alone, sometimes with 
 a small company of friends. This system would not 
 have succeeded with Frenchmen. The Yankee alone in 
 the woods, with no companion but his wife, is all-suffi- 
 cient for himself. The Frenchman is eminently social ; 
 he could not bear the solitude in which the Yankee would 
 feel at his ease. The latter, although solitary, becomes 
 excited by his own plans and eager to accomplish them. 
 The Frenchman cannot become interested in any indus- 
 trial enterprise except in connection with others, whose 
 concurrence with him is evident and palpable, or rather 
 he rarely becomes interested in any material task, for he 
 reserves his affections and sympathies for living objects. 
 It is quite impossible for him to fall in love with a clear- 
 ing, to feel the same transports at the success, of a manu- 
 facture as for the safety of a friend or the happiness of a 
 mistress ; but he is capable of applying himself to the 
 task with ardour, if his characteristic passions, his thirst 
 
 * I allude particularly to the Northwest, or that portion of the West in 
 which slavery does not exist. 
 
 37
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 for glory and his spirit of emulation, are brought into 
 play by contact with human beings. If it were proposed T 
 then, to settle colonies with Frenchmen, it would be 
 necessary to put little reliance on individual efforts. In 
 all things, as well as in a line of battle, a Frenchman 
 must feel his neighbour's elbow. Americans might be 
 thrown separately upon a new land, they would form lit- 
 tle centres round which constantly expanding circles of 
 population and cultivation would grow up. But if the 
 new settlers were Frenchmen, it would be necessary to 
 carry with them a society ready constituted, social bonds 
 already binding them in, or at least a regular social frame- 
 work, and bolts to which the social bonds are to be attached ; 
 that is, they must have, at starting, the great circle with 
 its centre strongly marked. 
 
 Canada is almost the only colony that has been founded 
 exclusively by Frenchmen,* and a complete social organi- 
 sation was carried thither. The country once explored, 
 the royal fleet landed the seigneurs, who had received 
 fiefs from royal grants, and who were followed by vassals 
 transplanted from Normandy and Brittany, among whom 
 the lands were distributed. At the same time an endowed 
 regular and secular clergy, with ample domains and the 
 right of collecting the tithe, was brought to the St. Law- 
 rence. Next came traders and companies, to whom was 
 given the monopoly of the fur-trade and the commerce of 
 the colony. In a word the three orders, the clergy, nobility, 
 and third estate, were imported ready made from Old France 
 into New. The only thing which the colonists left be- 
 hind them, was the poverty of the greatest number. The 
 system was a good one for that period ; the principle of 
 order and of ranks, which prevailed under the only form 
 
 * In Louisiana, St Domingo, and the other islands, the mass of the popu- 
 lation consisted of blacks.
 
 LABOUR. 291 
 
 then practicable, was in keeping with the character of the 
 people. The proof of this is to be found in the fact, that 
 Canada has flourished under this system in which the 
 English conquerors have made no changes, and the popula- 
 tion has increased in the bosom of general ease. I have seen 
 nothing which more completely realised the aurea medio* 
 critas, than the pretty villages on the banks of the St. 
 Lawrence. They do not exhibit the ambitious prosperity of 
 those of the United States ; they are much more modest than 
 those of the republic ; but if there is less show, there is 
 also more content and happiness. Canada reminded me 
 of Switzerland ; it is the same aspect of calm content- 
 ment and quiet happiness. It would be a subject of 
 admiration were it not by the side of the American 
 colossus ; its rapid growth would attract attention, were 
 it not for the miraculous expansion of the United States. 
 Neither would it be right to assert that the progress of 
 Canada has been in spite of the colonial system ; the 
 dispute about the because and the although is easily 
 settled in this case. All that was burdensome about 
 the original system remains untouched, and there is no 
 complaint against it. The seignorial dues, the tithe, 
 the -seignorial mill, and the four banal, still exist in 
 full vigour ; and do not appear in the interminable 
 list of ninetythree grievances, lately drawn up by the 
 Canadians,
 
 292 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 SUNBURY, (PENNSYLVANIA,) JULY 31, 1835. 
 
 IN a society devoted to production and traffic, money 
 must be regarded with other eyes, than among a people 
 of military spirit, or nourished in classical studies and sci- 
 entific speculations. Among the latter, it must be looked 
 upon, theoretically at least, as vile metal. With them 
 honour and glory are more powerful and more common 
 motives of action .than interest; they are the coin with 
 which many persons are content, the only coin which 
 many persons are ambitious to acquire. In an industrious 
 society, on the other hand, money, the fruit and object of 
 labour, is not to be despised ; a man's wealth is the mea- 
 sure of his capacity and of his consideration among his 
 fellow-citizens. Whatever may be the cause, the fact is 
 certain, that money is not the same thing here that it is 
 with us ; that it weighs here where with us it has no weight ; 
 that it appears openly here, where with us it would hide 
 itself. When I was in England, I was surprised at the 
 number of notices in the docks, threatening, for instance, 
 a fine for certain offences, with a promise of half to the 
 informer. If a prefect of the police should offer such a 
 premium to informers among us, our blood would boil with 
 indignation. In this country the same practice prevails, 
 and seems to be still more frequent. When a crime is 
 committed, the authorities offer a reward of 100 or 200 
 dollars to whoever will make known or deliver up the 
 criminal. In Philadelphia, I saw the governor of the 
 State and the mayor of the city endeavouring to outbid 
 each other in promises ; a murder had been committed
 
 MONEY. 293 
 
 during one of the preliminary elections, and those officers, 
 who were of different parties, endeavoured to prove by 
 the greatness of their offers, that the opposite party was 
 guilty of the act. In some cases of incendiarism or poi- 
 soning, a reward of 1000 dollars has been offered. It 
 should be observed, however, that in England, out of 
 London, and in this country, there is no organised police 
 like ours, and it, therefore, becomes necessary that the 
 citizens themselves should act as a police. 
 
 The maxim here is that everything is to be paid for. 
 Museums and institutions for higher instruction to which 
 admission is gratuitous, are here unknown. Nor are those 
 unpaid offices, which take a citizen from his business, and 
 would make it impossible for him to provide for the support 
 of his family, if he discharged them faithfully, known 
 here. The municipal offices in the country have no pay 
 attached to them, because they take up little time and 
 require little attention, and because a man in the country 
 has more leisure than the busy inhabitant of the city. 
 But in the cities all officers are paid, as soon as their func- 
 tions come to occupy much of their time. The custom 
 of paying by the day, which prevails, in England, is very 
 general here. Members of Congress are paid at the rate 
 of eight dollars a day, and if a legislative committee pro- 
 longs its sessions beyond those of the legislative body, the 
 pay is continued on the same footing. All the State legis- 
 latures are paid by the day. Canal commissioners, who 
 are generally men of some distinction, that is, rich men, 
 are generally paid in the same way, an account being kept 
 of the number of days they are employed in the public 
 service ; for them the pay amounts merely to the payment 
 of their expenses. Those, however, who are permanently 
 occupied, receive an annual salary. In some offices, the 
 incumbents are paid by fees for each affair in which they 
 become engaged ; this is generally the case with the
 
 294 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 States' Attorneys and the Justices of Peace, and with the 
 Aldermen in some of the cities. The public officers who 
 are regularly employed, such as the Governors of the 
 States, and the Mayors of the principal cities have a fixed 
 annual salary. It is a settled principle here that all work 
 should stand on the same footing with industrial labour, 
 and be paid in the same mariner. Intellectual merchan- 
 dise and material merchandise, capital and talent, dollars 
 and science, are here placed on the same level ; this prac- 
 tice puts every one at his ease, and facilitates, abridges, 
 and simplifies all operations. No one feels the least em- 
 barrassment in asking for a service, which he knows will 
 be paid for. Everything is settled plainly and easily, be- 
 cause in an industrious and prosperous society every one 
 has the power to be liberal. 
 
 Money is also made an instrument of punishment, as 
 well as of reward. It is well known that, in England, a 
 conviction for adultery enriches the wronged husband at 
 the expense of the guilty paramour, and the same practice 
 would prevail here, if the crime were not extremely rare. 
 The American law is very sparing of bodily punishments 
 for simple misdemeanours, but it makes very free use of 
 fines. On most bridges, there are notices forbidding the 
 passing with horses at any other pace than a walk, under 
 penalty of a fine of 2, 3, or 5 dollars. When a man is 
 suspected or even accused of a crime, such as forgery, 
 arson, or murder, it is not his person, but his purse that is 
 secured ; that is, instead of being arrested, he is obliged to 
 give bail in a sum which is left to the discretion of the 
 Judicial authority. Last year, while a convention for 
 revising the constitution of Tennessee was in session in 
 Nashville, one of the members, a militia general, of whom 
 there are thousands in the country, a man of large property, 
 and therefore very respectable, got into a quarrel with an 
 editor of a newspaper, and uttered violent threats against
 
 MONEY. 295 
 
 him. Some days afterward, in company with another 
 violent fellow, he actually discharged a pistol at his adver- 
 sary in the bar-room of a hotel, and wounded him danger- 
 ously. The affair was brought before the proper authori- 
 ties, and the assassin was admitted to bail, being thus left 
 at full liberty on depositing some thousand dollars, contin- 
 uing to sit in the Convention and to assist in the formation 
 of the new constitution of the State.* So much tender- 
 dess towards an assassin, and similar proceedings which I 
 have witnessed relative to incendiaries and persons guilty 
 of forgery, recall to mind those times of barbarism, in 
 which criminals were redeemed at a price. It will be 
 readily imagined, after what has been said, that imprison- 
 ment for debt is very abhorrent from American ideas ; in 
 fact, a general clamour has been raised against it ; most of 
 the States have already abolished it, and others will not 
 long delay to follow the example. 
 
 Money, is therefore, the sanction of the laws and of the 
 most simple police regulations. If a. magistrate has good 
 reason for believing that an individual has intentions to 
 break the peace, instead of taking him into custody as a 
 measure of prevention, he requires him to give bail for his 
 good behaviour. It is by money-penalties, also, that char- 
 tered companies are obliged to conform to the provisions 
 of their charters. It is by fines, that even the magistrates 
 are punished for neglect of duty. To remedy the incon- 
 veniences arising from the minute subdivision and disper- 
 sion of administrative authority in the New England States, 
 resort is also had to money. In that part of the Union, the 
 repair of roads is left to the care of the towns, and it is plain 
 that the travel through a whole State might be seriously 
 
 * This man was finally condemned in light damages, and this was his 
 only punishment. The object of assault survived the attempted assassina- 
 tion.
 
 296 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 incommoded by the neglect of one town. It is, therefore, 
 provided by law, that every town shall be responsible for 
 any accidents to travellers within its limits, which may be 
 owing to the bad state of the roads ; it is not uncommon 
 to read accounts in the newspapers of a town being con- 
 demned to pay a traveller, who has been overturned on its 
 roads or bridges, 500 or 1000 dollars damages. The city 
 of Lowell was very lately condemned to pay 6,000 dollars 
 to two travellers, who had broken their legs by such an 
 accident. The judge charged that the plaintiffs should 
 not only be reimbursed for the expenses of the cure, but 
 also for the estimated probable earnings of their industry 
 during their confinement. 
 
 Amongst us, it is not money, but honour, that occupies 
 the most conspicuous place, and if it be admitted that the 
 sentiment of honour lies at the foundation of monarchies, 
 and if every thing turn upon this one principle, this is very 
 well. The principle of honour is quite as good in every 
 view, whether logically, morally or practically considered, 
 as the principle of money. It is, indeed, more congenial 
 to the generosity of the French character ; but then it is 
 necessary that the honour should be something real, that 
 the consideration it gives, should be incontestable ; it 
 is necessary that the authority which is the source of hon- 
 our, should be itself respected. If the supreme authority 
 is insulted and despised, public functions become not a 
 source of consideration, but of contempt. If jealousy and 
 suspicion of power are admitted and consecrated by the 
 modern spirit of legislation and administration, is it not 
 true that your pretended recompense of public service by 
 the consideration and dignity they confer, is a mockery, and 
 and that your whole system is founded upon a contradic- 
 tion ? If royalty still sat all-powerful on the magnificent 
 throne of Versailles, amidst its guards glittering with steel 
 and gold, surrounded by the most brilliant court of which
 
 MONEY. 297 
 
 history preserves the record, and by the fascinations with 
 which the homage of the arts invested it ; or if the prince 
 were a saviour of his country, raised on the buckler by his 
 victories, and dating his decrees from the palace of vassal 
 kings, or from the Scho3nbrunn of the conquered Kaisars ; 
 if he crowned and uncrowned kings, as our ministers now 
 make and unmake sub-prefects ; if at a breath of his 
 mouth, victorious veterans calmly met death ; if the world 
 did him homage ; if he were the anointed of the Lord, 
 the choice and idol of the people ; if you had yet the 
 monarchy of Louis XIV., or of Napoleon, you would be 
 welcome to speak of consideration and honour ! It was 
 then distinction enough to be noticed by a royal look. 
 The favour of the sovereign then secured the confidence, 
 or at least the outward homage of the people. The point 
 of precedence wag worthy of being a subject of envy in 
 the days of the splendour of Versailles, or when one might 
 lose oneself in the crowd of kings in the Tuileries. But 
 what does it signify now-a-days, when royalty has lost 
 its poetical attributes, when public ceremonies are abolish- 
 ed, when there is no longer a court or court-dress ? Titles 
 have been profaned and degraded by the ignorance and 
 stupidity of those who ought to have supported their dig- 
 nity, or sullied by the jealousy of the commons. As for 
 your ribbands you have been obliged to scatter them under 
 the hoofs of horses. The system of honour is, therefore, 
 gone by ; to restore it, a revolution would be necessary ; 
 not a revolution like that of July, but a revolution like 
 that which was going on during the three centuries be- 
 tween Luther and Mirabeau, and which, ripe at last, has 
 been shaking both worlds during the last fifty years ; a 
 revolution in the name of authority, like that which our 
 fathers accomplished in the name of liberty. 
 
 Among the sayings attributed to M. de Talleyrand, the 
 folio wing is often quoted ; "I don't know an American 
 38
 
 298 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 that hasn't sold his horse or dog." It is certain that the 
 Americans are an exaggeration of the English, whom Na- 
 poleon used to call a nation of shop-keepers. The Amer- 
 ican is always bargaining ; he always has one bargain 
 afoot, another just finished, and several more in meditation. 
 All that he has, all that he sees, is merchandise in his eyes. 
 The poetical associations which invest particular spots or 
 objects with a character of sanctity, have no place in his 
 mind. The spire of his village church is no more than 
 any other spire to him, and the finest in his view, is the 
 newest, the most freshly painted. To him a cataract is a 
 motive power for his machinery, a mill privilege ; an old 
 building is a quarry of bricks and stones, which he works 
 without the least remorse. The Yankee will sell his 
 father's house, like old clothes or rags. In his character 
 of pioneer, it is his destiny to attach himself to nothing, 
 to no place, edifice, object, or person, except his wife, to 
 whom he is indissolubly bound night and day, from the 
 moment of marriage till death parts them. 
 
 At the bottom, then, of all that an American does, is 
 money ; beneath every word, money. But it would be a 
 mistake to suppose that he is not capable of making pecu- 
 niary sacrifices ; he is in the habit of subscribing to all 
 useful objects, and he does so without reluctance or regret, 
 oftener than we are accustomed to do, and more liberally 
 also ; but his munificence and his donations are system- 
 atic and calculated. It is neither enthusiasm nor passion 
 that unties his purse strings, but motives of policy or con- 
 siderations of propriety, views of utility and regard for the 
 public good, in which he feels his own private interests to 
 be involved. The American, therefore, admits some ex- 
 ceptions to his general commercial rulo of conduct. He 
 gives money, he attends committee-meetings, he draws up 
 in haste a report or an opinion ; he even goes in person, 
 at high speed, to Washington, in order to present a set of
 
 MONEY. 299 
 
 resolutions to the President, or he hastens to a neighbour- 
 ing city to attend a public dinner, and returns in equal 
 haste ; but he requires in this case that the exception to the 
 general rule should be sharply defined and the cause 
 strongly marked, that the public interest should be at stake. 
 And he particularly insists that the sacrifice should be of 
 money only, once for all, and that his time should be re- 
 spected. To everything-of a private nature, to everything 
 that takes up his time and demands his attention, he 
 applies the mercantile principle, nothing for nothing. He 
 pays the services of others with dollars, and he expects 
 others to do the same by him, because he looks upon com- 
 pliments as too hollow and light to be put in the scale 
 against labour, and because distinctions, such for instance 
 as precedence, are unknown and incomprehensible to him. 
 With him it is an indisputable maxim, that the labourer is 
 worthy of his hire. The ideas of service and salary are 
 so inseparably connected in his mind, that in American 
 almanacs it is common to see the rate of pay annexed to 
 the lists of public officers. He is of opinion that nobody 
 can live on a dry crust and glory ; he thinks of the welfare 
 of his wife and children, of a provision for his old age, 
 and if he were told that there is a country in which these 
 considerations are disregarded, for the purpose of obliging 
 a neighbour or paying a courtesy to a magistrate, such a 
 thing would appear absurd to him. 
 
 High pay is not, however, consonant with the spirit of 
 democracy, because it is incapable of discerning its pro- 
 priety. The mechanic who makes 500 dollars a year, 
 thinks himself generous towards a public officer to whom 
 he gives 1,500 or 2,000 ; just as our citizens of the mid- 
 dling class in Paris, who have an income of 10,000 francs, 
 cannot see why a public functionary should not be content 
 with 12,000. The Americans thought that among them, 
 as elsewhere, there would be two kinds of coin, money
 
 ; 
 
 300 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 and public consideration, and they were persuaded, on the 
 authority of Franklin, that it would be easy to find able 
 public officers, whose salary should chiefly consist in the 
 honour of public station. But they were mistaken ; for 
 office is here no title to respect, but quite the contrary ; 
 and as public services are neither paid by dollars nor con- 
 sideration, only a Hobson's choice is left to the people. 
 With the exception of a very small number of places, 
 which the delights- of power still cause to be sought after, 
 notwithstanding the cost of the pleasure of commanding 
 and having dependents or subordinates, office is generally 
 sought for only by the floating part of the population, which 
 has been unsuccessful in business, and tried one occupation 
 after another in vain. It is not even, strictly speaking, a 
 profession, but rather the temporary resort of persons who 
 have no settled pursuit, who, as soon as they find a more 
 eligible employment in industry or speculation, take leave 
 of the State. The West Point Academy sends out about 
 forty lieutenants for the army annually ; about one third 
 of these resign their commissions before two or three years 
 of service, because the pay of the officers, although much 
 higher than with us, is very inconsiderable compared with 
 the profits of a merchant or the salary of an engineer. 
 The duties of a public officer are generally less difficult 
 in the United States than in France. Among us every 
 question that arises, embraces a great complication of in- 
 terests, and requires more knowledge. The powers and 
 duties of the government in France are much more exten- 
 sive and more various, and more care is exacted of persons 
 in the public employ among us, than in this country. Yet 
 the average of salaries here is much greater than with us. 
 When the Congress and the States shall stand in need of 
 able meti for functionaries, they will do as the American 
 merchants do to their clerks, they will pay them. Con- 
 gress, having lately become sensible of the importance of
 
 MONEY. 
 
 301 
 
 securing the services of good naval officers, has just raised 
 the pay of that corps.* It may even be said that the 
 number of office-holders who are treated with illiberality, 
 is very small. f Out of 158 persons employed in the ser- 
 vice of the Treasury department at Washington, there are 
 only 5 who receive less than 1,000 dollars, and there are 
 only two who receive more than 2,000 ; this is the appli- 
 cation of the principle of equality to pay. As the price 
 of common objects of consumption, that is, bread, meat, 
 coffee, tea, sugar, and fuel, is generally lower in the United 
 States than in France, and especially in Paris, a salary of 
 1,500 or 2,000 dollars is sufficient in most cases to support 
 
 * PAY OF OFFICERS OF THE FRENCH AND AMERICAN NAVIES. 
 
 French Navy. 
 
 Vice Admiral, .... $7,525 
 Rear Admiral, ... - 6,000 
 
 American Navy. 
 
 Senior Captain, ... - $4,500 
 Capt. Com. a Squadron, - 4,000 
 
 Captain, 3,500 
 
 Commander, 3,500 
 
 Lieut. Command. - - 
 
 Lieut. 
 
 Passed Midship. - - 
 Midshipman, - - - 
 
 1,800 
 
 1,500 
 
 750 
 
 400 
 
 Captain of Ship of the Line, 
 
 1st class, - - - 2,750 
 
 2nd class, - - - 2,700 
 
 , of Frigate, - - - 2,170 
 
 of Corvette, - - ] ,650 
 
 Lieut.. Command. .... ],150 
 
 Lieut. 600 
 
 Lieut, of Frigate, - - - - 500 
 
 Midshipman, 1st class, - - 220 
 
 2d class, - - 160 
 
 The gunners, boatswain, sail-makers, and carpenters receive, 
 In a ship of the line, 750 dollars, 
 For a Frigate, - - 600 " 
 On other duty, - - 500 " 
 
 In the French navy the pay of corresponding officers is from 400 to 200 
 dollars. 
 
 t They are the governors of most of the States, and the heads of the ex- 
 ecutive departments at Washington. These last receive only 6,000 dollars, 
 and they are obliged to keep up a certain style of living. It is singular that 
 some subaltern officers are permitted to receive enormous fees. Thus the 
 inspector of flour in New York received in 1835, 10,000 dollars, the inspec- 
 tor of potash 20,000, and the inspector of tobacco 34,500.
 
 302 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 a family in comfort and abundance. An officer of the 
 government, who receives from 400 to 600 dollars in 
 Paris, lives only by practising the strictest econony if he 
 is a bachelor, and suffers great privations if he is a married 
 man. At Washington he would receive from 1,000 to 
 1,200 dollars, and would live in abundance and comfort, 
 if not in style and luxury. Nor would he here, as with 
 us, be condemned to the punishment of Tantalus, for the 
 pomp and splendour of the privileged classes in the 
 European capitals is unknown in the United States. 
 In Paris, the employe is bespattered with mud by the equi- 
 page of a man who spends his 20,000 dollars a year in 
 the streets of Philadelphia, he would elbow a rich capi- 
 talist who kept no coach because he would not know what 
 to do with it, and who, with a revenue of 30,000 or 
 60,000 dollars, cannot spend more than 8,000 or 10,000 
 at the most. The ratio of conditions, which in Paris is 
 as one to forty, is here not more than one to eight. 
 
 Here the condition of the richest merchant, and that of 
 a mechanic and a farmer, are not essentially different ; the 
 difference is merely in degree and not in kind. All have 
 similar houses, built on a similar plan ; only that one has 
 a front five or six feet wider, and is one or two stories 
 higher than another ; the distribution of apartments, and 
 the furniture are similar. All have carpets from the cellar 
 to the garret, all sleep in large high-post bedsteads very 
 much like each other, projecting out into a chamber with- 
 out closets, alcoves, or double door, and with bare walls ; 
 only the carpets of the one are coarse, and those of the other 
 are fine, the bedstead of the rich is of mahogany, and 
 that of the mechanic of cherry or walnut. In general 
 the table is served much alike ; there is the same number 
 of meals, and there is nearly the same number of dishes. 
 This is so much the case, that, if my French palate had to 
 decide between the dinner of a great city hotel (excepting
 
 MONEY. 303 
 
 those of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore), 
 and that of a country inn, at which I should sit by the 
 side of the blacksmith of the place, with sooty visage and 
 with sleeves rolled up, I think that I should really pro- 
 nounce in favour of the latter. This is especially the case in 
 the North, and particularly in New England, the land of the 
 Yankees, fn the South, the condition of the planter on 
 his estate gains all that is taken from the mass of the 
 population, or the slaves. And even at the North, of late 
 years, commerce, which has collected men into large 
 cities, has also accumulated capital in single hands, and 
 created great fortunes. The inequality of condition is, 
 therefore, beginning to manifest itself; the style of the 
 new houses in Chesnut Street, Philadelphia, with their 
 first story of white marble, is a blow at equality. The 
 same innovation is creeping in in New York ; the 
 anti-democratical tendency of commerce is revealing it- 
 self.* 
 
 It might be expected that among a people so deeply 
 absorbed in material pursuits, misers would abound ; but 
 it is not so. There is never any niggardliness in a South- 
 erner ; it is sometimes found in the Yankee, but nowhere 
 do you see specimens of that sordid avarice, of which ex- 
 amples are so common among us. The American has too 
 high a notion of the dignity of human nature, to be wil- 
 
 * If the rich in the large towns of the North spend eight or ten times as 
 much as the clerk, it is not that they keep up much style, or even that 
 they- have an equipage. When would the husband, always immersed in 
 business, or the wife, occupied with her household cares, be able to use the 
 coach? Suppose they had time to use it, and the public opinion would not 
 be offended by it, what could one do with an equipage in the streets of Phil- 
 adelphia ? The principal difference in the expenditure of the two classes, 
 is that the rich man now and then gives a ball, and piques himself on his 
 parade, which the indulgent democracy pardons for one day ; this 'sort of 
 luxury is much more expensive here than with us, and it does not require a 
 very brilliant rout, in small houses, in which the company is received in two 
 rooms 20 feet by 25, to cost 700 or 800 dollars.
 
 304 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 ling to deprive himself and his children of those comforts 
 which soften the asperities of life ; he respects his 
 own person too much not to surround it with a certain 
 degree of decency. Harpagon is never to be met with in 
 the United States, and yet Harpagon is not by a great 
 deal the most wretchedly degraded miser, that European 
 society exhibits. The American is devoured with a 
 passion for money, not because he finds a pleasure in 
 hoarding it up, but because wealth is power, because it is 
 the lever by which he governs nature. I ought also to do the 
 Americans justice on another point. I have said that with 
 them every thing was an affair of money, and yet there is 
 one thing, which among us, a people of lively affections, 
 prone to love, and generous by nature, takes the mercan- 
 tile character very decidedly, and which among them has 
 nothing of this character ; I mean marriage. We buy a 
 woman with our fortune, or we sell ourselves to her for 
 her dower. The American chooses her, or rather offers 
 himself to her, for her beauty, her intelligence, or her 
 amiable qualities, and asks no other portion. Thus, 
 whilst we make a traffic of what is most sacred, these 
 shop-keepers exhibit a delicacy and loftiness of feeling, 
 which would have done honor to the most perfect models 
 of chivalry. It. is to industry that they are indebted for 
 this superiority. Our idle cits, not being able to increase 
 their patrimony, are obliged in taking a wife to calculate 
 her portion, in order to decide if their joint income will 
 be enough to support a family. The American, having 
 the taste and the habits of industry, is sure of being able 
 to provide amply for his household, and is therefore, free 
 from the necessity of making this melancholy calculation. 
 Is it possible to doubt, % that a race of men, which thus 
 combines in a high degree the most contradictory qualities, 
 is reserved for lofty destinies ?
 
 SPECULATIONS. 305 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 SPECULATIONS. 
 
 JOHNSTOWN, (PENN.) AUG. 4, 1835.' 
 
 THE present aspect of this country is, in a high degree, 
 calculated to encourage the friends of peace in their hopes 
 and wishes with respect to a rupture with France. 
 The Americans of all parties conduct themselves in their 
 private affairs like men who are convinced that business 
 will experience no interruption from that quarter. A per- 
 son who landed at New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, on 
 the day that news was received of the effect produced in 
 France by the President's message, and had since played 
 Epimenides, would not now recognise the , United States ; 
 the most unlimited confidence has succeeded to the gene- 
 ral anxiety. Every body is speculating, and every thing 
 has become an object of speculation. The most daring 
 enterprises find encouragement ; all projects find ' subscri- 
 bers. From Maine to the Red River, the whole country 
 has become an immense rue Quincampoix. Thus far 
 every one has made money, as is always the case when 
 speculation is in the ascendant. And as soon-come soon 
 goes, consumption is enormously increased, and Lyons 
 feels the effect. I said that every thing has become an 
 object of speculation ; I was mistaken. The American, 
 essentially practical in his views, will never speculate in 
 tulips, even at New York, although the inhabitants of 
 that city have Dutch blood in their veins. The principal 
 objects of speculation are those subjects which chiefly oc- 
 cupy the calculating minds of the Americans, that is to 
 say, cotton, land, city and town lots, banks, railroads. 
 
 The amateurs in land at the north, dispute with each 
 39
 
 306 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 other the acquisition of the valuable timber-lands of that 
 legion ; at the southern extremity, the Mississippi swamps, 
 and the Alabama and the Red River cotton lands, are the 
 subject of competition, and in the West, the corn fields and 
 pastures of Illinois and Michigan, The unparallelled 
 growth of some new towns has turned the heads of the 
 nation, and there is a general rush upon all points 
 advantageously situated ; as if, before ten years, three 
 or four Londons, as many Parises, and a dozen Liverpools, 
 were about to display their streets and edifices, their quays 
 crowded with warehouses, and their harbours bristling with 
 masts, in the American wilderness. In New York build- 
 ing lots* have been sold sufficient for a population of two 
 million souls, and at New Orleans, for at least a million. 
 Pestilential marshes and naked precipices of rock have 
 been bought and sold for this purpose. In Louisiana, the 
 quagmires, the bottomless haunts of alligators, the lakes 
 and eypress-swamps, with ten feet of water or slime, and 
 in the North, the bed of the Hudson with 20, 30, or 50 
 feet of water, have found numerous purchasers. 
 
 Take the map of the United States ; place yourself on 
 the shore of Lake Erie, which twenty years ago was a 
 solitary wilderness ; ascend it to its head ; pass thenoe to 
 Lake St. Clair, and from that lake push on towards the 
 north, across Lake Huron : go forward still, thread your 
 way through Lake Michigan, and advance southwards till 
 the water fails you ; here you will find a little town by 
 the name of Chicago, one of the out-posts of our indefati- 
 gable countrymen when they had possession of America. 
 Chicago seems destined, at some future period, to enjoy 
 an extensive trade ; it will occupy the head of a canal, 
 which is to connect the Mississippi with the lakes and the 
 St. Lawrence ; but at present it hardly numbers two or 
 
 * A lot is generally from 22 to 25 feet front, and from 80 to 100 deep.
 
 SPECULATIONS. 307 
 
 three thousand inhabitants. Chicago has in its rear a 
 country of amazing fertility ; but this country is yet an 
 uncultivated wild. Nevertheless the land for ten leagues 
 round has been sold, resold, and sold again in small sec- 
 tions, not. however, at Chicago, but at New York, which, 
 by the route actually travelled, is 2,000 miles distant. 
 There you may find plans of Chicago lots numerous 
 enough for 300,000 inhabitants ; this is more than any 
 city of the New World. at present contains. More than 
 one buyer will, probably, esteem himself fortunate, if, on 
 examination, he shall find not more than six feet of water 
 on his purchase. 
 
 Speculations in railroads have hardly been less wild 
 than those in land. The American has a perfect passion 
 for railroads ; he loves them, to use Camille Desmoulins' 
 expression in reference to Mirabeau, as a lover loves his 
 mistress. It is not merely because his supreme happiness 
 consists in that speed which annihilates time and space ; 
 is also because he perceives, for the American always rea- 
 sons, that this mode of communication is admirably adapt- 
 ed to the vast extent of his country, to its great maritime 
 plain, and to the level surface of the Mississippi valley, and 
 because he sees all around him in the native forest, abun- 
 dance of materials for executing these works at. a cheap 
 rate. This is the reason, why railroads are multiplied in 
 such profusion, competing not only with each other, but en- 
 tering into a rivalry with the rivers and canals. If the works 
 now in process of construction are completed (and I think 
 that they will be,) there will be, within two years, three 
 distinct routes between Philadelphia and Baltimore, exclu- 
 sive of 'the old post-route ; namely, two lines consisting 
 wholly of railroads, and a third consisting in part of steam- 
 boats, and in part of railroad. The line that has the advantage 
 of half an hour over its rivals, will be sure to crush them. 
 
 The manner of establishing banks here is this ; an act
 
 308 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 authorising the opening of books in a public place, for sub- 
 scription of stock, is obtained from the legislature, and all 
 persons have the right to subscribe on payment of a cer- 
 tain sum, say five, ten, or twenty per cent, on the amount 
 of stock taken by them respectively. The affair of open- 
 ing the books becomes a matter of the greatest moment. 
 In France, we form lanes (on fait queue] round the doors 
 of the theatres ; but in the United States, during the last 
 year, the doors of the sanctuaries in which the books for 
 registering the subscriptions for bank-stock have been de- 
 posited, have been thronged with the most intense solici- 
 tude. In Baltimore, the books were opened for a new 
 bank, the Merchants' Bank, with a capital of two millions ; 
 the amount subscribed was nearly fifty million. At 
 Charleston, for a bank of the same capital, ninety millions 
 were subscribed, and as the act in this instance required 
 the advance of 25 per cent., the sum actually paid in, in 
 paper money to be sure, but yet in current bills at par, 
 amounted to twentytwo and a half millions, or more than 
 eleven times the capital required. This rage for bank- 
 stock is easily explained. Most of the banks here are, in 
 fact, irresponsible establishments, which have the privilege 
 of coining money from paper. The share-holders, by 
 means of a series of ingenious contrivances, realise 8, 9, 
 10, and 12 per cent, interest on capital, which they do not 
 actually hold ; and this in a country where the five per 
 cents, of Pennsylvania and New York, and the six per 
 cents, of Ohio are at 110 to 115. The Ohio sixes! 
 What would the heroes of Fort Duquesne think of that, 
 if they should come back ? 
 
 Most of these speculations are imprudent, many of them, 
 are foolish. The high prices of to-day may and needs 
 must be followed by a crisis tomorrow. Great fortunes, 
 and many of them too, have sprung out of the earth since 
 the spring ; others will, perhaps, return to it before the fall
 
 SPECULATIONS. 309 
 
 of the leaf. The American concerns himself little about 
 that ; violent sensations are necessary to stir his vigorous 
 nerves. Public opinion and the pulpit forbid sensual grati- 
 fications, wine, women, and the display of a princely 
 luxury ; cards and dice are equally prohibited ; the Ameri- 
 can, therefore, has recourse to business for the strong emo- 
 tions which he requires to make him feel life. He launches 
 with delight into the ever-moving sea of speculation. One 
 day, the wave raises him to the clouds ; he enjoys in haste 
 the moment of triumph. The next day he disappears 
 between the crests of the billows ; he is little troubled by 
 the reverse, he bides his time coolly, and consoles himself 
 with the hope of better fortune. In the midst of all this 
 speculation, whilst some enrich and some ruin themselves, 
 banks spring up and diffuse credit, railroads and canals 
 extend themselves over the country, steamboats are launch- 
 ed into the rivers, the lakes, and the sea ; the career of 
 the speculators is ever enlarging, the field for railroads, 
 canals, steamers, and banks goes on expanding. Some 
 individuals lose, but the country is a gainer ; the country 
 is peopled, cleared, cultivated ; its resources are unfolded, 
 its wealth increased. Go ahead ! 
 
 If movement and the quick succession of sensations 
 and ideas constitute life, here one lives a hundred fold 
 more than elsewhere ; all is here circulation, motion, and 
 boiling agitation. Experiment follows experiment ; enter- 
 prise succeeds to enterprise. Riches and poverty follow 
 on each other's traces, and each in turn occupies the place 
 of the other. Whilst the great men of one day dethrone 
 those of the past, they are already half overturned them- 
 selves by those of the morrow. Fortunes last for a season ; 
 reputations, during the twinkling of an eye. An irresisti- 
 ble current sweeps away everything, grinds everything to 
 powder, and deposits it again under new forms. Men 
 change their houses, their climate, their trade, their condi-
 
 n 
 
 310 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 tion, their party, their sect ;* the States change their laws, 
 their officers, their constitutions. The soil itself, or at 
 least the houses, partake in the universal instability.! The 
 existence of social order, in the bosom of this whirlpool 
 seems a miracle, an inexplicable anomaly. One is tempted 
 to think, that such a society, formed of heterogeneous ele- 
 ments, brought together by chance, and following each its 
 own orbit according to the impulse of its own caprice or 
 interest, one would think, that after rising for one moment 
 to the heavens, like a waterspout, such a society would 
 inevitably fall flat in ruins the next ; such is not, however, 
 its destiny. In the midst of this general change, there is 
 one fixed point ; it is the domestic fire-side, or, to speak 
 more correctly, the conjugal bed. An austere watchman, 
 sometimes harsh even to fanaticism, wards off from this 
 sacred spot everything that can disturb its stability ; that 
 guardian is the religious sentiment. Whilst that fixed 
 point shall continue invariable, whilst that sentinel shall 
 persist in his vigilant watch over it, the social system may 
 make new somersets, and undergo new changes without 
 serious risk ; it may be pelted by the storm, but while it 
 
 * The causes of religious changes are various. It is not rare to see Ameri- 
 cans, on becoming rich, abandon their former sect for Episcopalianism, for 
 instance, which is the most fashionable. The change, however, from one 
 sect to another is less considerable than is supposed in Catholic countries ; 
 for the different Protestant sects differ less from each other, than a Jansenist 
 from a Molinist, or a Jesuit from a Gallican. But we must except from this 
 remark the Anglican church, which has a peculiar character, discipline, and 
 liturgy, and the two not very numerous sects of Unitarians, who deny the 
 divinity of Christ, and Universalists, who reject the doctrine of reprobation. 
 
 t The American houses are low and slight ; the walls are generally only 
 a brick and a half, sometimes only one in thickness ; when, therefore, the 
 course of the street is changed, as is often the case in New York, they are 
 set forward or back with little difficulty, and they are often even raised 
 bodily. In the country, the houses are mostly of wood, and are often trans- 
 ported a considerable distance on wheels. Between Albany and Troy, I 
 was stopped on the road by a house of more than forty feet front, which 
 was travelling in this manner.
 
 SPECULATIONS. 311 
 
 is made fast to that hold, it will neither split nor sink. 
 It may even be divided into separate and independent 
 masses, but it will still grow in energy, in resources, in 
 extent. 
 
 The influence of the democracy is so universal in this 
 country, that it was quite natural for it to raise its head 
 amidst the speculators. There have, therefore, been 
 strikes on the part of the workmen, who wish to have a 
 share in the profits of speculation, and who have demanded 
 higher wages and less work. The former demand was 
 just, for all provisions, all articles of consumption have 
 risen in price. These coalitions are by no means timid in 
 this country ; for the English practice of haranguing in 
 public and getting up processions prevails here, and the 
 working class here feels its strength, is conscious of its 
 power, and knows how to make use of it. The different 
 traders have held their meetings in Philadelphia, New 
 York, and other places, discussed their affairs publicly, 
 and set forth their demands. The women have had their 
 meeting as well as the men. That of the seamstresses of 
 Philadelphia attracted notice ; Matthew Carey, known as 
 a political writer, presided, assisted by two clergymen. 
 Among the demands of the trades, that of the journey- 
 men bakers, who, by virtue of the rights of man and the 
 sanctity of the seventh day, would not make bread 
 Sundays, is worthy of attention. The principal trades 
 have decided that all work shall be suspended until 
 the masters,* if this name can be applied here except in 
 derision, have acceded to their ultimatum. That every 
 one may know this, they have caused their resolutions to be 
 published in the newspapers, signed by the president and 
 secretaries of the meeting. These resolutions declare 
 that those workmen, who shall refuse to conform to their 
 
 * This word is not used here ; that of employers is substituted for it.
 
 312 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 provisions, will have to abide the consequences of their 
 refusal. The consequences have been, that those refractory 
 workmen, who persisted in their labours, have been dri- 
 ven, with stones and clubs, from their workshops, without 
 any interference on the part of the magistrates. The con- 
 sequence is, that at this very moment, a handful of boatmen 
 on the Schuylkill canal, prevent the coal boats from descend- 
 ing to the sea, lay an embargo upon them, and thus inter- 
 rupt one of the most lucrative branches of the Pennsyl- 
 vania trade, deprive the mariners and ship-owners, who 
 transport the coal to all parts of the coast, of wages and 
 freights, and expose the miners to the danger of being 
 dismissed from the mines. Meanwhile the militia looks 
 on ; the sheriff stands with folded arms. If this minority 
 of the boatmen, for these acts of disorder are the work of 
 a small minority, persists in their plans, a fight between 
 them and the miners is to be apprehended.* In Phila- 
 delphia, the consequence has been, that the carpenters, in 
 order to reduce some contractors to terms, have set fire to 
 several houses, which these latter were building. In this 
 case, the authorities at length interfered, the mayor issued 
 a proclamation, reciting that, whereas there is reason to 
 believe these fires to be the work of some evil-minded 
 persons, he offers 1000 dollars reward to whoever shall 
 disclose the authors of the same. But it is too late. The 
 municipal authorities, for the purpose, it is said of gaining 
 a few votes on the side of the Opposition, instead of in- 
 terposing their power between the workmen and the mas- 
 ters, hastened, from the first, to comply with all the de- 
 
 * The citizens of Pottsville have put an end to these outrages, by repair- 
 ing with a sheriff's mandate to the spot where the boatmen were assembled, 
 and seizing the ringleaders, whom they conducted to prison. This courage 
 of simple citizens, who in time of need convert themselves into an armed 
 force, is one of the surest guarantees of American liberty ; but it is relaxing 
 in the cities.
 
 SPECULATIONS. 313 
 
 mauds of the former who were employed on the munici- 
 pal works. 
 
 The philosopher, in whose eyes the present is but a 
 point, may find reason to rejoice in considering these facts. 
 Workmen and domestics in Europe live in a state of ab- 
 solute dependence, which is favourable only to him who 
 commands. Legitimists, republicans, the juste-milieu, all 
 comport themselves toward the operative whom they em- 
 ploy, or the domestic who is in their service, as if he were 
 a being of an inferior nature, who owes his master all his 
 zeal and all his efforts, but who has no claim for any re- 
 turn beyond a miserable pittance of wages. One may be 
 permitted to wish for the establishment of a juster scale of 
 rights and duties. In the United States, the absolute prin- 
 ciple of the popular sovereignty having been applied to the 
 relations of master and servant, of employer and operative, 
 the manufacturer and the contractor, to whom the work- 
 men give the law, endeavour to dispense with their aid as 
 much as possible, by substituting more and more machin- 
 ery for human force ; thus the most painful processes in 
 the arts become less burdensome to the human race. The 
 master, whose domestics obey him when they please, and 
 who. pays dear* for being badly and ungraciously served, 
 favours, to the extent of his power, the introduction of me- 
 chanical contrivances for simplifying work, in order to 
 spare himself the inconveniences of such a dependence. 
 
 It would be worth while to study not only the great 
 manufacturing machinery, but the common hand tools and 
 domestic utensils, in this country. These utensils, tools, 
 and machines exert a powerful influence upon the practical 
 liberty of the greatest number ; it is .by means of them, 
 
 * In most of the provinces in France servants' wages are from 12 to 15 
 dollars a year; here they are from 10 to 12 dollars a. month, and one servant 
 in France does the work of two in this country. 
 
 40
 
 314 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 that the most numerous class of society gradually frees 
 itself from the yoke which tends to crush and abase it. 
 In this point of view, the present relations between the 
 employer and the employed, between the master and the 
 servant, in this country, tend to hasten the coming of a 
 future, which every friend of humanity must hail with joy. 
 But if the philosophical satisfaction is ample, present, phys- 
 ical comfort is almost absolutely wanting. But whoever 
 is neither operative nor domestic, whoever, especially, has 
 tasted and enjoyed the life of the cultivated classes in 
 Europe, he will find the actual practical life in America, 
 the mere bone and muscle, as it were, of life, to consist of 
 a series of jars, disappointments, mortifications, I had almost 
 said, of humiliations. The independence of the operatives 
 is sometimes the ruin of the masters ; the independence 
 of servants involves the dependence of the women, con- 
 demns them to household labours little consonant with the 
 finished education which many of them have received, 
 and nails them to the kitchen and the nursery from the 
 day of their marriage to the day of their death. 
 
 When the innovating force, acting without check or 
 balance, operates with an excess of energy, all classes suf- 
 fer equally from the derangement. Not only what in 
 Europe are called the higher classes, (but which here must 
 take another name,) are deprived of a thousand little en- 
 joyments, which it is a matter of convention to despise in 
 books and set speeches, although every one sets a high 
 value on them in practice ; but the whole social machine 
 gets out of order, discomfort becomes general, and the extra- 
 vagant claims of the lower classes, to speak as a European, 
 recoil violently on themselves. At this very moment, for 
 example, the Sybarites of Philadelphia, whose hearts are set 
 upon having fresh bread on Sunday, are not the only per- 
 sons who suffer or are threatened with suffering. If the 
 exaggerated pretensions of the working classes are persisted
 
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 315 
 
 in, they will lose their custom, there will be no demand 
 for labour. Speculations, if not made solid by labour; 
 will burst like soap-bubbles, and if a reaction comes, the 
 operative, who is little used to economise, will feel it 
 more sensibly than others. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS, (PA.) AUG. 7, 1835. 
 
 HERE I am at Bedford, one of the American watering- 
 places ; it is hardly three days since I arrived, and I am 
 already in haste to quit it. The Americans, and, still more 
 especially, the American women, must be desperately list- 
 less at home, to be willing to exchange its quiet comfort for 
 the stupid bustle, and dull wretchedness of such a residence. 
 It would seem that in a country truly democratic, as is the 
 case .here in the Northern States, nothing like our water- 
 ing-places can exist ; and you will see that in proportion 
 as Europe grows democratic, if such is its destiny, your 
 delightful summer resorts will lose their charm. Man is 
 naturally exclusive ; there are few pleasures, which do 
 not cease to be such, the moment they become accessible 
 to all, and for that reason only. At Saratoga or at Bedford, 
 the American soon grows weary, because he sees that there 
 are twenty thousand heads of families in Philadelphia and 
 New York, who can, as well as he, if the notion seizes 
 them, and it actually does seize them, have the satisfaction 
 of bringing their wives and daughters to the same place, and, 
 once there, of gaping on a chair in the piazza the whols
 
 316 LKTTEIl XXV. 
 
 day ; of going, arms in hand (I mean the knife and fork,) to 
 secure their share of a wretched dinner ; of being stifled in 
 the crowd of the ball-room during the evening, and of sleep- 
 ing, if it is possible, in the midst of such a hubbub, upon a 
 miserable pallet in a cell echoing one's tread from its floor of 
 pine boards. The American passes through the magnificent 
 landscapes on the Hudson without noticing them, because 
 he is one of six hundred or a thousand on board the steamer. 
 And to confess the truth, I have become an American myself 
 in this respect, and I admired the panorama of West Point 
 and the Highlands, only when I found myself alone in my 
 boat on the river. 
 
 Democracy is too new a comer upon the earth, to have 
 been able as yet to organise its pleasures and its amuse- 
 ments. In Europe, our pleasures are essentially exclu- 
 sive, they are aristocratic like Europe itself, and cannot, 
 therefore, be at the command and for the use of the mul- 
 titude. In this matter, then, as in politics, the American 
 democracy has yet to create every thing afresh. The 
 problem is difficult, but it is not insoluble, for it was once 
 resolved among us. The religious festivals of the Catho- 
 lic church were eminently democratic ; all were called to 
 them, all took part in them. To what transports of joy 
 did not all Europe, great and small, nobles, burgesses, and 
 serfs, give itself up in the time of the crusades, when the 
 victory of Antioch or the capture of Jerusalem was cele- 
 brated by processions and Te Deums ? Even to this day, 
 in our southern provinces, where faith is not yet extinct, 
 there are ceremonies truly popular ; such are the festival of 
 Easter with the representations of the Passion exhibited 
 in the churches, and the processions with banners and 
 crosses, the brotherhoods of penitents with their quaint 
 frocks and flowing robes, and their long files of women 
 and children ; with the effigies of the saints in full dress, 
 and their relics piously carried about ; and, finally, with
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 317 
 
 the military and civil pomp, which, notwithstanding the 
 atheism of the law, is mingled with the show. This is 
 the poor man's spectacle, and one which leaves on his 
 mind better and more vivid recollections, than the atro- 
 cious dramas of the boulevard and the fire- works of the 
 Barrier of the Throne, leave to the suburban of Paris. 
 
 Already democracy, especially in the Western States, 
 is beginning to .have its festivals, which thrill its fibres, 
 and stir it with agreeable emotions. There are religious 
 festivals, the Methodist camp-meetings, to which the peo- 
 ple press with eager delight, in spite of the philosophical 
 remonstrances of the more refined sects, who find fault 
 with their heated zeal and noisy ranting, and in spite, or 
 rather in consequence, of the convulsionary and hysteri- 
 cal scenes of the anxious bench. In the older States of 
 the North, there are political processions, for the most part 
 mere party exhibitions, but which are interesting in this 
 respect, that the democracy has a share in them ; for it is 
 the democratic party that gets up the most brilliant and 
 animated. Beside the camp-meetings, the political pro- 
 cessions are the only things in this country, which bear 
 any resemblance to festivals. The party dinners, with 
 their speeches and deluge of toasts, are frigid, if not re- 
 pulsive ; and I have never seen a more miserable affair, 
 than the dinner given by the Opposition, that is to say, by 
 the middle class, at Powelton, in the neighbourhood of 
 Philadelphia. But I stopped involuntarily at the sight of 
 the gigantic hickory-poles which made their solemn entry 
 on eight wheels, for the purpose of being planted by the 
 democracy on the eve of the election. I remember one 
 of these poles, with its top still crowned with green 
 foliage, which came on to the sound of fifes and drums, 
 and was preceded by ranks of democrats, bearing no other 
 badge than a twig of the sacred tree in their hats. It was 
 drawn by eight horses, decorated with ribbands and mot-
 
 318 LETTER XXV. 
 
 toes ; Astride on the tree itself, were a dozen Jackson 
 men of the first water, waving flags with an air of anti- 
 cipated triumph, and shouting, Hurrah for Jackson ! 
 
 But this entry of the hickory was but a by-matter 
 compared with the procession I witnessed in New York. 
 It was in the night after the closing of the polls, when 
 victory had pronounced in favour of the democratic party. 
 (See Letter XV.}. The procession was nearly a mile 
 long ; the democrats marched in good order to the glare of 
 torches ; the banners were more numerous than I had ever 
 seen them in any religious festival ; all were in transpa- 
 rency, on account of the darkness. On some were in- 
 scribed the names of the democratic societies or sections ; 
 Democratic young men of the ninth or eleventh ward; 
 others bore imprecations against the Bank of the United 
 States ; Nick Biddle and Old Nick here figured largely, and 
 formed the pendant of our libera nos a malo. Then came 
 portraits of General Jackson afoot and on horseback ; 
 there was one in the uniform of a general, and another in 
 the person of the Tennessee farmer, with the famous 
 hickory cane in his hand. Those of Washington and 
 Jefferson, surrounded with democratic mottoes, were min- 
 gled with emblems in all tastes and of all colours. Among 
 these figured an eagle, not a painting, but a real live eagle, 
 tied by the legs, surrounded by a wreath of leaves, and 
 hoisted upon a pole, after the manner of the Roman 
 standards. The imperial bird was carried by a stout 
 sailor, more pleased than ever was a sergeant permitted to 
 hold one of the strings of the canopy, in a catholic cere- 
 mony. From further than the eye could reach, came 
 marching on the democrats. I was struck with the re- 
 semblance of their air to the train that escorts the viati- 
 cum in Mexico or Puebla. The American standard- 
 bearers were as grave as the Mexican Indians who bore 
 the sacred tapers. The democratic procession, also, like
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 319 
 
 the Catholic procession, had its halting places ; it stopped 
 before the houses of the Jackson men to fill the air with 
 cheers, and halted at the doors of the leaders of the Oppo- 
 sition, to give three, six, or nine groans. If these scenes 
 were to find a painter, they would be admired at a dis- 
 tance, not less than the triumphs and sacrificial pomps, 
 which the ancients have left us delineated in marble and 
 brass ; for they are not mere grotesques after the manner of 
 Rembrandt, they belong to history, they partake of the 
 grand ; they are the episodes of a wondrous epic which 
 will bequeath a lasting memory to posterity ; that of the 
 coming of democracy. 
 
 Yet as festivals and spectacles, these processions are 
 much inferior to revivals, which take place in the camp- 
 meetings. All festivals and ceremonies in which woman 
 does not take part, are incomplete. Why is it that our 
 constitutional ceremonies are so entirely devoid of inter- 
 est ? It is not because the actors are merely commoners, 
 very respectable citizens surely, but very prosaic, and that 
 the pomp of costumes and the fascination of the arts, 
 are banished from them ; it is rather because women 
 do not and cannot have a place in them. A wit has 
 said that women are not poets, but they are poetry it- 
 self. 
 
 I remember what made the charm and the attraction of 
 the processions in my provincial city. We opened our 
 eyes with wonder at the red robe of the chief president ; 
 we gazed with delight at the epaulets and gold lace of the 
 general, and more than one youth was inspired with mili- 
 tary ardour at that show ; we stretched forward with im- 
 patience to catch a glimpse of the episcopal train ; we 
 threw ourselves on our knees mechanically, on the approach 
 of the canopy with its escort of priests, and the venerable 
 bishop, crowned with the mitre, and bearing the host 
 in his hands ; we envied the glory of those boys, who
 
 320. LETTER XXV. 
 
 had the privilege of enacting St. Mark or St. Peter for the 
 day ; more than one tall stripling was glad to sink his fif- 
 teen years, in which he prided himself, for the sake of 
 taking the character of St. John, clad in a sheepskin ; but 
 the whole multitude held their breath, when, beneath the 
 forest of banners, through the peaked frocks pf the peni- 
 tents and the bayonets of the garrison, amidst the surplices 
 and albs of the priests, there appeared in sight one of those 
 young girls in white robes, who represented the holy wo- 
 men and the Mother of the seven woes ; or she, who in 
 the person of St. Veronica, displayed the handkerchief, 
 with which the sweat was wiped from the Saviour's brow 
 as he ascended Mount Calvary ; or she, who, loaded with 
 gold chains, ribands, and pearls, represented the empress 
 at the side of the emperor ;* or those who had just been 
 confirmed by my lord bishop, and still bore the traces of 
 the emotions excited by that solemn act. So it is because 
 there are women in the camp-meetings, and because they 
 take a not less active part in them than the most rousing 
 preachers, and it is on this account only, that the American 
 democracy throngs to these assemblages. The camp- 
 meetings with their raving Pythonissas have made the 
 fortune of the Methodists, and attracted to their church in 
 America a more numerous body of adherents than is num- 
 bered by any of the English sects in Europe. 
 
 Take women from the tournaments, and they become 
 nothing more than a fencing-bout ; from camp-meetings 
 take away the anxious bench, remove those women who 
 fall into convulsions, shriek, and roll on the ground, who, 
 pale, dishevelled, and haggard, cling to the minister from 
 whom they inhale the holy spirit, or seize the hardened 
 sinner at the door of the tent, or in the passage-way, and 
 
 * This is one of the recollections of the Roman empire, which has left 
 deep impressions in the South of France. 

 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 321 
 
 strive to melt his stony heart ; it will be in vain, that a 
 majestic forest overshadows the scene, of a beautiful sum- 
 mer's night, under a sky that need not fear a comparison 
 with a Grecian heavens ; in vain, will you be surrounded 
 with tents and numberless chariots, that recall to mind the 
 long train of Israel fleeing from Egypt ; in vain the distant 
 fires, gleaming amongst the trees, will reveal the forms of 
 the preachers gesticulating above the crowd ; in vain, will 
 the echo of the woods fling back the tones of their voice ; 
 you will be weary of the spectacle in an hour. But the 
 camp-meetings. as a they are now conducted, have the power 
 of holding the people of the West for whole weeks ; some 
 have lasted a month. 
 
 I allow that the camp-meetings and political processions 
 are as yet only exceptions in America. A people has not 
 a complete national character, until it has its peculiar and 
 appropriate amusements, national festivals, poetry. In this 
 respect, it will not be easy to create American nationality ; 
 the American has no past from which to draw inspiration. 
 On quitting the old soil of Europe, on breaking off from 
 England, his fathers left behind them the national chroni- 
 cles, the traditions, the legends, all that constitutes coun- 
 try, that country which is not carried about on the soles 
 of one's feet. The American, then, has become poor in 
 ideality, in proportion as he has become rich in material 
 wealth. But a democracy always has some resource, so 
 far as imagination is concerned. I cannot pretend to de- 
 cide how the American democracy will supply the want of 
 a past and of old recollections, any more than I can under- 
 take to pronounce, in what manner it will bridle itself, 
 and curb its own humours. But I am sure that America 
 will have her festivals, her ceremonies, and her art, as I am 
 that society in America will assume a regular organisation ; 
 for I believe in the future of American society, or, to speak 
 more correctly, of the beginnings of society, whose growth 
 41
 
 322 LETTER XXV. 
 
 is visible on the east and still more on the west of the Al- 
 leghanies. 
 
 In France we have been for more than a century strug- 
 gling against ourselves, in the attempt to lay aside our 
 national originality. We are striving to become reasona- 
 ble according to what we imagine to be the English pat- 
 tern ; and after our example the Southern Europeans are 
 endeavouring to torture themselves into a parliamentary 
 and calculating demeanour. Imagination is treated as a 
 lunatic. Noble sentiments, enthusiasm, chivalric loftiness 
 of soul, all that made the glory of France, and gave Spain 
 half the world, is regarded with contempt and derision. 
 The public festivals and popular ceremonies have become 
 the laughing-stock of the free thinkers. Love of the fine 
 arts is nothing more than a frivolous passion. We make 
 the most desperate efforts to starve the heart and soul, con- 
 formably to the prescriptions of our religious and political 
 Sangrados. To strip life of the last vestige of taste and 
 art, we have gone so far as to exchange the majestic ele- 
 gance of the costume, which we borrowed from the Span- 
 iards when they ruled Europe, for the undress of the 
 English, which may be described in one word, as suited 
 to the climate of Great Britain. This could be borne, if 
 we had merely flung away our tournaments, our carousals, 
 our jubilees, our religious festivals, our elegance of garb. 
 But unhappily we have gone to the sources of all national 
 and social poetry, to religion itself, and tried to dry them 
 up. Our manners and customs scarcely retain the slightest 
 tincture of their boasted grace. Politics is abandoned to 
 the dryest matter of fact. The national genius would 
 have to be given over as past cure, did not now and then 
 some gleams and outbursts prove that it is not dead but 
 sleeps, and that the holy fire is yet smouldering beneath 
 the ashes. 
 
 France, and the peoples of Southern Europe, of whom 
 
 | 
 
 :
 
 BEDFORD SPRINGS. 323 
 
 she is the coryphaeus, certainly owe much to the philosophy 
 of the 18th century; for that was our Protest, that raised 
 the standard of liberty amongst us, opened a career for the 
 progress of mind, and established individuality. But it 
 must be confessed that it is inferior to German, English, 
 and American Protestantism, because it is irreligious. 
 The writings of the Apostles of that great revolution will 
 survive as literary monuments, but not as lessons of moral- 
 ity ; for whatever is irreligious, can have but a transient 
 social value. Place the remains of Voltaire and Montes- 
 quieu, of Rousseau and Diderot, in the Pantheon ; but on 
 their monuments deposit their works veiled under a shroud. 
 Teach the people to bless their memory ; but do not teach 
 it their doctrines, and do net permit it to learn them from 
 servile followers, whom those great writers would disavow, 
 if they could return to the earth ; for men like them 
 belong to the present or a future age, but never to the past. 
 
 In return for all that has been taken from us, we have 
 received the representative system. This, it has been sup- 
 posed, would'satisfy all our wants, would meet all our wishes 
 in moral and intellectual, as well as in physical things- 
 Far be it from me to undervalue the representative system ! 
 I believe in its permanency, although I doubt whether we 
 have yet discovered the form, under which it is suited to 
 the character of the French and the Southern Europeans ; 
 but whatever may be its political value, it cannot be denied 
 that it does not, that it never can, of itself alone, make 
 good the place of all that the reformers have robbed us of. 
 It has its ceremonies and its festivals ; but these smell too 
 much of the parchment not to disgust our senses. It has, 
 to a certain degree, its dogmas and its mysteries, but it has 
 no hold on the imagination. Art has no sympathy with 
 it ; it has not the power to move the heart ; and it em- 
 braces, therefore, but one fourth of our existence. 
 
 I can conceive how representative government should 

 
 324 LETTEllXXV. 
 
 here be made the keystone of the social arch. An Amer- 
 ican of fifteen years of age is as reasonable as a Frenchman 
 of forty. Then society here is wholly masculine ; 
 woman, who in all countries has little of the spirit of the 
 representative system, here possesses no authority ; there 
 are no saloons in the United States. But even here the sys- 
 tem no longer exists in its primitive purity except on paper. 
 The field of religion, although much narrowed, it is true, 
 still remains open here, and the imagination still finds 
 food, however meagre, within its limits. But among us, 
 it would be sheer fanaticism to set up the representative 
 system as the pivot of social life. All of us, God be 
 thanked, have a period of youth ! Among us, women have 
 a real power, although not enumerated in the articles of 
 the Charter ; and our national character has many femi- 
 nine, I will not say effeminate, features. In vain would 
 you decimate France, and leave only the burghers of forty 
 years, who have the senses calmed, the mind clear of illu- 
 sions, that is to say, unpoetical and dry ; you would 
 hardly then have a community that would be satisfied 
 with constitutional emotions. 
 
 This is the cause why France is the theatre of a perpe- 
 tual struggle between the old and the middle-aged on one 
 side, and the young, who find their bounds too narrow, on 
 the other. Youth accuses age of narrow views, of timid- 
 ity, of selfishness ; the old complain of the greedy ambition 
 which devours the young, and of their ungovernable tur- 
 bulence. That is the only good government, which sat- 
 isfies at once the demands for order, regularity, stability 
 and physical prosperity on the part of those of riper years, 
 and fills the longings of the young, and of that portion of 
 society which always continues youthful, for lively sensa- 
 tions, brilliant schemes, and lofty aspirations. By the side 
 of their parliament, the English have their vast colonies, 
 by which this spirit finds vent, over the remotest seas.
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 325 
 
 The Anglo-Americans have the West, and also, like Great 
 Britain, the ocean. This double invasion of the East by 
 the fathers, and of the West by the emancipated sons, is a 
 spectacle of gigantic magnitude and sublime interest. To 
 suppose that we, who stand in need of some vast enter- 
 prise, in which some may play a part before the eyes of 
 the world, and others may enjoy the spectacle of their 
 prowess, to suppose that we shall be content to be forever 
 imprisoned within our own territory, with no other occu- 
 pation than that of watching or turning the wheels of the 
 representative machine, would be to wish that a man of 
 taste, confined to this paltry hamlet of Bedford, should 
 imagine himself in paradise. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 
 
 RICHMOND, AUG. 16, 1835. 
 
 RICHMOND stands in an admirable situation on the slope 
 -of a hill whose base is bathed by the James River. Its 
 Capitol, with its brick columns covered with plaster, with 
 its cornice and architrave of painted wood, produces an 
 effect, at a distance, which even the Parthenon, in the 
 days of Pericles, could not have surpassed ; for the sky 
 of Virginia, when it is not darkened by a storm, or veiled 
 with snow, is as beautiful as that of Attica. Richmond 
 has its port nearer than the Piraeus was to Athens, while, 
 at the same time it stands upon the falls of James River. 
 Richmond enchanted me from the first by its charming
 
 326 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 situation and the cordiality of its inhabitants ; and it pleases 
 me by its ambition, for it aspires to be a metropolis, and 
 it is making the due preparations to assume that character 
 by the great works which it is executing or aiding to 
 execute, canals, railroads, water-works, huge mills, work- 
 shops, for which the fall in the river affords an almost un- 
 limited motive power. Here I also found some country- 
 men, whose love for their country had not been chilled by 
 fifty years of absence and eighty years of age, and who 
 have preserved, amidst the simplicity of American man- 
 ners, that fine flower of courtesy, of which the germ is 
 daily disappearing amongst us. I went yesterday, for the 
 second time, to visit the cannon and mortars, given to 
 America during her struggle for independence, by Louis 
 XVI. In the Capitol, by the side of the statue of Wash- 
 ington, I found the bust of Lafayette. I heard the names 
 of Rochambeau and d'Estaing pronounced, as if they were 
 old friends who had left but yesterday. I seem to myself, 
 at times to have been miraculously transported, not into 
 France, but on the frontiers. 
 
 My admiration of Richmond is not, however, blind ; 
 the founders of the new city have plotted out streets one 
 hundred feet wide, like the highways in the style of Louis 
 XIV. ; but in our great roads, between the quagmires on 
 the right and left, there is at least a strip of passable pave- 
 ment or roadway. The streets of new Richmond have 
 neither pavement nor light. In the rainy season, they are 
 dangerous bogs, in which, I am told, that several cows, 
 who are here allowed by the municipal authorities to go 
 at large, have met with the fate of the master of Ravens- 
 worth in the Kelpie. Richmond has, also, something of 
 the aspect of Washington ; with the exception of the busi- 
 ness part of the town, it is neither city nor country ; the 
 houses are scattered about on an imaginary plan, and it is 
 almost impossible to find any lines to guide you, or to re-
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 327 
 
 cognise the street K, F, or D, to which you are referred ; 
 for the alphabet has furnished the names here, as the 
 arithmetic has done at Washington. The plot of Rich- 
 mond has. however, this advantage over that of Washing- 
 ton, that it is on a smaller scale and will be more speedily 
 filled up ; whilst Washington with its arrangements for a 
 million inhabitants, will not, perhaps, have fifty thousand, 
 twenty years hence. 
 
 There is something in Richmond which offends me 
 more than its bottomless mudholes, and shocks me more 
 than the rudeness of the western Virginians,* whom I met 
 here during the session of the legislature ; it is slavery. 
 Half of the population is black or mulatto ; physically, 
 the negroes are well used in Virginia, partly from motives 
 of humanity, and partly, because they are so much live 
 stock raised for exportation to Louisiana; morally, they 
 are treated as if they did not belong to the human race. 
 Free or slave, the black is here denied all that can give 
 him the dignity of man. The law forbids the instruction 
 of the slave or the free man of colour in the simplest ru- 
 diments of learning, under the severest penalties ; the 
 slave has no family ; he has no civil rights ; he holds no 
 
 * When the assembly is in session, Richmond is full of country gentle- 
 men from Western Virginia, real giants, taller, stouter, and broader than the 
 giants who are exhibited among us for money. When I found myself sur- 
 rounded by these men, with their loud voices and Herculean frame, I expe- 
 rienced the same feeling with the companions of Magellan, when they 
 found themselves alone amidst a crowd of Patagonians. These good peo- 
 ple, to testify their good will, lavish upon you the same weighty caresses, as 
 those which the Spaniards at first took for blows, and when you feel their 
 heavy hands fall like a sledge upon your European shoulders, nothing less 
 than the frank smile that lights up their broad faces, would convince you of 
 their friendly disposition. The first time I was in Richmond, I occupied the 
 chamber, that had just been left by one of these gentlemen ; wishing to 
 consult some of the papers of the session, I sought in vain for any thing like 
 his library. His whole parliamentary outfit consisted of a mass of empty 
 bottles, a barrel of biscuit, a case of liquors, and the fragments of a huge 
 cheese.
 
 328 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 property. The white man knows that the slave has 
 opened his ear to the word which every thing here pro- 
 claims aloud, liberty ; he knows that in secret the negro 
 broods over hopes and schemes of vengeance, and that the 
 exploits and martyrdom of Gabriel, the leader of an old 
 conspiracy, and of Turner, the hero of a more recent in- 
 surrection, are still related in the negro cabins.* The 
 precautionary measures which this knowledge has induced 
 the whites to adopt, are such as freeze the heart of a stran- 
 ger with horror. 
 
 1 Richmond is noted for its tobacco and flour market. 
 The Richmond flour is prized at Rio Janeiro as much as 
 at New York, at Lima as well as at Havana. The largest 
 flour-mill in the world is at Richmond, running twenty 
 pair of stones, containing a great variety of accessory ma- 
 chinery, and capable of manufacturing 600 barrels of 
 flour a day. The reputation of the Richmond flour in 
 foreign markets, like that of the American flour in general, 
 depends upon a system of inspection peculiar to the coun- 
 try, which contravenes, indeed, the theory of absolute 
 commercial freedom, but is essential to the prosperity of 
 American commerce, and has never, that I have heard of, 
 been a subject of complaint. The flour is inspected pre- 
 vious to its being exported. The weight of each barrel 
 and the quality of of the flour are ascertained by the in- 
 spector, and branded on the barrel-head. The superior 
 qualities only can be exported ; the inspection is real and 
 thorough, and is performed at the expense of the holder. 
 The Havana, Brasilian, or Peruvian merchant is thus per- 
 fectly sure of the quality of the merchandise he buys ; 
 both the buyer and the seller find their advantage in it. 
 
 * A gang of negroes rose against their masters in Southampton in 1831, 
 and murdered several white families, without distinction of age or sex, and 
 the alarm became general through the country. The murderers were soon 
 captured and executed.
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 329 
 
 Commerce can no more dispense with confidence in the 
 market than with credit in the counting-house. 
 
 Tobacco is subjected to the same system of inspection, 
 and in general, all the coast States, all those from which 
 produce is exported to foreign parts, have established this 
 system, and applied it to almost all articles in which frauds 
 can be committed. Thus in New York wheat-flour and 
 Indian corn-meal, beef, pork, salt fish, potash, whale oil, 
 lumber, staves, flax-seed, leather, tobacco, hops, spirits, 
 are all inspected. In regard to flour, the law is more 
 rigourous than in respect to other articles. The inspector 
 brands with the word light those barrels which are not of 
 the legal weight, and the exportation of which is also 
 prohibited, and with the word bad those which are of poor 
 quality. As for Indian corn, it is required that the grain 
 shall have been kiln-dried before grinding. Flour from 
 other States cannot be sold in the city of New York, even 
 for local consumption, unless it has been inspected the 
 same as if for exportation. Every inspector has the right 
 to search vessels in which he suspects that there is flour 
 that has not been inspected, and to seize what has been so 
 shipped, or what it has been attempted to ship. There are be- 
 side various other provisions and penalties to prevent fraud. 
 
 If the necessity of these inspections were not sufficiently 
 proved by their good effects and by long experience, it 
 would be by the abuses that prevail in those articles of 
 commerce which are not subjected to the system. Com- 
 plaints have already been made in Liverpool, that bales of 
 cotton are often made up of an inferior article concealed 
 beneath an outer layer of good quality. From a report 
 addressed to the Chamber of American Commerce in this 
 metropolis of the cotton trade, by the principal cotton-bro- 
 kers, it appears that this has not been confined to two or 
 three bales, amidst large quantities, but that whole lots of 
 one or two hundred bales have been found thus deficient. 
 42
 
 330 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 What ! it will be said, is there not, then, freedom of 
 commerce in this classic land of liberty ? No ! the foreign 
 commerce is not free in the United States, because the 
 American people is not willing to expose the industry and 
 commerce of a whole country to be ruined by the first 
 rogue that comes along. The people of this country is 
 eminently a working people ; every one is at liberty to 
 work, to choose his profession, and to change it twenty 
 times ; every one has the right to go and come on his 
 business, at pleasure, and to transport his person and his 
 industry from the centre to the circumference, and from 
 the circumference to the centre. If the country does not 
 enjoy the political advantages of administrative unity, 
 neither is it hampered in the most petty details of industry 
 by excessive centralisation. No man is obliged to go six 
 hundred miles to solicit the license and personal signature 
 of a minister, overloaded with business, and harassed by 
 parliamentary solicitudes. But American liberty is not a 
 mystical, undefined liberty ; it is a practical liberty, in 
 harmony with the peculiar genius of the people and its 
 peculiar destiny ; it is a liberty of action and motion, of 
 which the American avails himself to spread himself over 
 the vast territory that Providence has given him, and to 
 subdue it to his uses. The liberty of locomotion is almost 
 absolute with the exception of some restraints imposed 
 by the observance of the Sabbath. The liberty, or rather 
 independence, in matters of industry is also ample ; but if 
 it is abused by some individuals, the general tendency is to 
 restrain them by law or by dictatorial measures, or by the 
 influence of public opinion, sometimes expressed in the 
 shape of mobs. 
 
 The restraints on internal trade are few ; there are, 
 however, some restrictions upon hawkers and pedlers who 
 impose on the credulity of the country people. If no 
 effective bankrupt-law has yet been enacted, severe penal-
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 331 
 
 ties are provided against false pretences. If stock-jobbing 
 has not been prohibited, it is not from want of will on the 
 part of the legislators, for they are fully alive to the evils 
 of unproductive speculation, which diverts from industry 
 the needful capital ; but because they do not see how it. is 
 to be effectually prevented. Besides, it is not easy to com- 
 mit frauds in the United States, in the home trade ; for 
 here every body knows every body else, and every one is 
 on the watch against others ; and it is not difficult to 
 ascend to the sources of a fraud. In respect to articles 
 designed for the foreign trade, detection is not so easy. 
 There is also here a sort of patriotism, which is by 
 no means at war with the real interests of the parties, 
 and which operates with the fear of public opinion, in 
 keeping up a certain degree of honesty in domestic 
 transactions, and a tone of morality, which, if not wholly 
 above reproach, is certainly far superior to what prevails 
 amongst us ; whilst, to many persons, all is fair in dealings 
 with foreigners, whom they look upon as a kind of barba- 
 rians. 
 
 Previous to 1789, we had numerous restrictions not only 
 on foreign commerce, but on domestic industry, in France. 
 These were all blown away by the Revolution ; and cer- 
 tainly the destruction of most of them, which had be- 
 come antiquated and inapplicable to the existing state of 
 things, was a great gain ; but we have run into the con- 
 trary extreme, and abolished not only the burdensome 
 restraints, but the most salutary checks, and among them 
 the inspection of exported articles. Yet on the whole we 
 have gained in respect to domestic industry, by sweeping 
 away those often cumbersome regulations ; but in regard 
 to our foreign trade, the evil has certainly overborne the 
 good, as the decline of our maritime commerce fully proves. 
 
 On the peace of 1814, when the sea was again opened 
 to our vessels, our foreign commerce fell into the hands of
 
 332 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 petty traffickers, whose cupidity exhausted the vocabulary 
 of fraud. During the first years after the Restoration, the 
 French name became discredited in all the markets of the 
 Old and the New World. The Levant trade, of which we 
 had the monopoly, passed into the hands of the English 
 and Austrians. The stuffs, with which we formerly sup- 
 plied the East, being no longer subject to inspection on ex- 
 portation, fell short in measure and were inferior in quality. 
 Formerly packages of our goods changed hands without 
 distrust and without search ; but it became necessary to 
 submit them to a rigourous examination, for their contents 
 often turned out to be quite different from the invoice. 
 South America was the great theatre of these frauds ; 
 water was actually sold for Burgundy, rolls of wood for 
 rolls of ribands. The Bordelese, who, not without reason, 
 charge the prohibitive system with the decline of their 
 prosperity, cannot be blind to the fact, that their own 
 unscrupulous rapacity contributed pretty largely to this 
 result. 
 
 As customers could no longer be found to deal with us, 
 these frauds have necessarily been checked. Our foreign 
 trade has gradually fallen into the hands of a few great 
 houses, and this concentration, which has powerfully con- 
 tributed to the prevalence of honorable dealings in English 
 commerce, has done something towards reviving ours. 
 The small dealers have been driven out of the field ; and 
 it is to this cause that we have to attribute the good condi- 
 tion of our trade with the United States. But let us not 
 deceive ourselves ; some sleights of hand are still played 
 off ; Bordeaux is not yet wholly purged of the infection ; 
 French commerce abroad is yet cankered by foul sores. It 
 must be confessed, that, if our public policy has been mark- 
 ed by a good faith and a spirit of disinterestedness, that 
 give us a right to denounce the Punic faith of perfidious 
 Albion, the English race can proudly oppose the bold and
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 
 
 honourable spirit of its commercial dealings to the pusil- 
 lanimity and unworthy shifts of our own. Let us con- 
 fess our shame, and submit to the necessary diet for the 
 cure of so loathsome a leprosy. 
 
 The United States constitute a society which moves 
 under the impulse and by the guidance of instinct, rather 
 than according to any premeditated plan ; it does not 
 know itself. It rejects the tyranny of a past, which is 
 exclusively military in its character, and yet it is deeply 
 imbued with the sentiment of order. It has been nurtured 
 in the hatred of the old political systems of Europe ; but a 
 feeling of the necessity of self-restraint runs through its 
 veins. It is divided between its instinctive perceptions of 
 the future and its aversion to the past ; between its thirst 
 after freedom, and its hunger for social order ; between its 
 religious veneration of experience, and its horror of the 
 violence of past ages. Hence the apparent contradictions 
 which appear in its tastes and its tendencies ; but the con- 
 fusion is only apparent. 
 
 In each State there are two authorities, distinct in their 
 composition and their attributes. The one corresponds to 
 the government in the European social system, to the old 
 Caesar. At its head is a magistrate who bears the old 
 name of Governor,* with the pompous title of commander- 
 
 * The respect of the Americans for old names and titles is shown in their 
 retaining most of those that were in use under the English rule. Thus the 
 States are divided into counties, and there are in^everal towns, for instance, 
 in Charleston, a King's Street and a Queen's Street. In Virginia, there are 
 Prince Edward's, Prince George's, King's and Queen's, King George's and 
 King William's Counties. Georgia retained its name, even when at war 
 with the monarch in honour of whom it bore it. I was very much surprised 
 to hear a court of justice in Pennsylvania opened with the old French word 
 oyez! oyez ! oyez! repeated by the crier, without his understanding the 
 meaning. The English received it from the Normans, and the Americans 
 have retained it, because they received it from their fathers. In France we 
 not only changed the name of Choisy-le-Roi into Choisy-le-Peuple, but we 
 even suppressed the prefix of Saint, in the names of the Streets.
 
 334 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 in-chief of the sea and land forces. This authority is re- 
 duced to a shadow. In the new States of the West, 
 which have come into the world since the establishment 
 of Independence, its attributes have been gradually sup- 
 pressed, or rather the citizens have reserved the exercise of 
 them to themselves. Thus the people itself appoint most 
 of the public officers. The management of funds is rarely 
 confided to the Governor, but is generally entrusted to a 
 special board of Commissioners. The Governor has not the 
 control of the forces of the State ; strictly speaking, indeed, 
 there are none ; but in case of necessity, the Sheriff has 
 the right to summon the posse comitatus, and to oblige all 
 bystanders, armed or not, to render him assistance, and to 
 act as police officers. There is no regular police, there 
 are no passports ; but nobody can stop at an inn without 
 entering his name and residence on the register. This 
 register is open to the examination of all in the bar-room, 
 which is a necessary appendage of every public place, and 
 there it remains at all times to be turned over by all. The 
 bar-keeper fills, in fact, the post of commissioner of police, 
 and the crowd that assembles in the bar-room to read the 
 newspapers, smoke, drink whiskey, and talk politics, that 
 is to say all travellers, would, in case of necessity, be ready 
 to act the part of constables. This is real self-govern- 
 ment ; these are the obligations and responsibilities, that 
 every citizen takes upon himself when he disarms au- 
 thority. The power of the Governor, who was formerly 
 the representative of fpyalty, the brilliant reflexion of the 
 omnipotence of the proud monarchs of Europe, is crumbled 
 to dust. Even the exterior of power has not been kept 
 up ; he has no guards, no palace, no money. The Gov- 
 ernors of Indiana and Illinois have a salary of 1000 dollars 
 a year, without a house or any accessories. There is not 
 a trader in Cincinnati, who does not pay his head-clerk 
 better ; the clerks at Washington have 700 dollars a year. 

 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 335 
 
 This fall of power is to be explained by other consid- 
 erations than those drawn from the principle of self-gov- 
 ernment. The ancient power was Caesar, was military 
 in its character. American society has denied Caesar. 
 In Europe, it has been necessary that Caesar should 
 be strong for the security of national independence ; for 
 in Europe we are always on the eve of war. The United 
 States, on the contrary, are organised on the principle, 
 that war between the States is an impossibility, and that 
 a foreign war is scarcely probable. The Americans, there- 
 fore, can dispense with Caesar, but we are obliged to cleave 
 to him. Yet it is not to be inferred that they can and 
 will long dispense with authority, or that they are even now 
 free from its control. There is, in America, religious 
 authority, which never closes its eyes ; there is the author- 
 ity of opinion, which is severe to rigour ; there is the 
 authority of the legislatures, which sometimes savours of 
 the omnipotence of parliament ; there is the dictatorial 
 authority of mobs. 
 
 Still more ; by the side of the power of Caesar, in politi- 
 cal affairs, another regular authority is beginning to show 
 itself, which embraces within its domain the modern in- 
 stitutions and new establishments of public utility, such 
 as the public routes, banks, and elementary schools, that, 
 in the United States, have acquired an unparallelled magni- 
 tude. Thus there are Canal Commissioners, Bank Com- 
 missioners, School Commissioners. Their power is great 
 and real. The Canal Commissioners establish adminis- 
 trative regulations, which they change at will, without 
 previous notice. They fix and change the rate of tolls ; 
 they are surrounded by a large body of agents, entirely 
 dependent upon them and removeable at pleasure ; they 
 are charged with the management of large sums of 
 money ; the sums that passed through the hands of 
 the Pennsylvania Commissioners amounted to nearly
 
 336 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 23,000,000 dollars. They are certainly subjected to a 
 less minute and rigourous control, than is extended to the 
 most trifling affairs of our Board of Public Works or our 
 Engineer Department. If they had had our financial 
 regulations, our system of responsibility, our court of 
 accounts, they would, certainly, have spent ten years more 
 in executing the works entrusted to them, and they would 
 have executed them no better and no cheaper. The Bank 
 Commissioners in the State of New York, by the provi- 
 sions of the Safety Fund Act, are clothed, by right, if not 
 in fact, with a sort of dictatorship ; they have, in certain 
 cases, power of life and death over the banks. 
 
 It is in the new States, especially, that one should see 
 the Commissioners exercise their powers. Last summer 
 the Ohio Canal Commissioners, perceiving or thinking that 
 they perceived, a conspiracy among the persons engaged 
 in the transportation of goods on the New York canals to 
 raise the rates of freight, immediately adopted a resolution 
 to this effect ; whereas certain persons have shown a dis- 
 position to make exorbitant charges, the rates of toll on 
 all articles that may have paid on the New York canal, 
 above a certain rate of freight, shall be double. This 
 was establishing a maximum, not only on their own ter- 
 ritory, but on that of a neighbouring State. A director- 
 general of our public routes, who should take such a liberty, 
 would be forthwith denounced as violating the principles 
 of commercial freedom. In the United States, every 
 body agrees that the Ohio Commissioners were right ; that 
 the profits of the transportation companies would be some- 
 what less, but the public would be the gainer, and the 
 former accordingly submitted. 
 
 In the United States, then, the general weal is the 
 supreme law ; and it immediately raises its head and vin- 
 dicates its rights, when it feels the encroachments of pri- 
 vate interest. The system of government in this country
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 337 
 
 is, therefore, not so much a system of absolute liberty and 
 free will, as a system of equality, or rather it takes the 
 character of a strong rule by the majority. In looking at 
 some of the provisions in the charters of incorporated 
 companies, one is tempted to ask how associations could 
 be formed on such conditions, and how they have been 
 able to procure capital. In Massachusetts, the share-holders 
 are individually responsible for the debts of the com- 
 pany. In Pennsylvania, it is expressly provided, that, if 
 at any time the privileges granted to the corporation shall 
 prove to be contrary to the public good, the legislature 
 may revoke them. This is the germ of despotism ; but 
 in the United States, Caesar is disarmed ; the old feudal 
 line has neither fangs nor claws. Industry is prompt to 
 take alarm at the exercise of despotism by Cassar ; but it 
 is only in extreme cases, that it will feel any distrust of a 
 society which lives and flourishes by labour, and all. whose 
 ends and aims, public and private, are self-aggrandisement 
 by means of productive labour. 
 
 To understand fully the meaning of the word liberty, 
 as it is used in this country, it is necessary to go to the 
 sources of the American population ; that is to say, to the 
 origin- of the distinction between the Yankee and the Vir- 
 ginian race. They have arrived at their notions of liberty 
 by different avenues, the one by the gate of religion, and 
 the other by that of politics, and have, therefore, under- 
 stood it very differently. 
 
 When the Yankee came to settle himself in the New 
 World, it was not for the purpose of founding an empire, 
 but to establish a church. He fled from a land, which 
 had shaken off the yoke of the papal Babylon, only to fall 
 under that of the Babylon of episcopacy. He left behind 
 him Satan, his pomp, and his works ; he shook from the 
 soles of his feet the dust of the inhospitable land of the 
 Stuarts and the Anglican bishops ; he sought a refuge 
 43
 
 338 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 in which he might practise his own mode of worship and 
 obey what he believed to be the law of God. The Pil- 
 grims, landed on Plymouth rock, established a liberty 
 according to their own notion ; it was a liberty for 
 their own use exclusively, within whose embrace they felt 
 perfectly at ease themselves, without caring if others were 
 stifled by it. It might have been expected, that, pro- 
 scribed themselves, they would at least have admitted 
 religious toleration ; but they did not grant it the narrowest 
 corner, and even now it is far from having elbow room 
 among them. Originally, the right of citizenship was 
 extended only to Puritans like themselves; the state and 
 the church were confounded ; it was not until 1832 that 
 they were definitely and completely separated in Massa- 
 chusetts. The Jew and the Quaker were forbidden to 
 touch the soil under the severest penalties, and in case of 
 return, under pain of death. At present, if the law tole- 
 rates the Roman Catholic, public opinion does not, as the 
 burning of the Ursuline convent in 1834, and the scanda- 
 lous scenes exhibited at the trials of the incendiaries, testify. 
 Still less mercy is shown to unbelief ; witness the trial of 
 Abner Kneeland for blasphemy, on account of his panthe- 
 istic writings.* 
 
 The Yankee type exhibits little variety ; all Yankees 
 seem to be cast in the same mould ; it was, therefore, very 
 easy for them to organise a system of liberty for them- 
 selves, that is, to construct a frame, within which they 
 should have the necessary freedom of motion. On their 
 arrival they accordingly formed the plan of one, riot merely 
 tracing its general outlines and form, but dividing it into 
 numerous compartments controlling all the details of life, 
 
 * It is unnecessary to say that the author has here fallen into a gross 
 error. Even in the affair of the convent at Charlestown, it was the supposed 
 abuse of a particular institution, not the Roman Catholic religion itself, that 
 kindled the flame. TRANSL.
 
 POWER AND LIBERTY. 339 
 
 with as much minuteness as the Mosaic law did that of the 
 Hebrews. Thus organised, it became impossible for any 
 man not cut to the same pattern, to establish himself 
 among them. Although most of those laws which thus 
 reduced life to rules,* have been abrogated, especially since 
 the Revolution, still their spirit survives. The habits 
 which gave them birth, and to which, by a natural reac- 
 tion, they gave strength, still exist, and to this day it is 
 observable, that no foreigner settles in New England. 
 
 As for us, who resemble each other in nothing, except in 
 diifering from every body else, for us, to whom variety is as 
 necessary as the air, to whom a life of rules would be a sub- 
 ject of horrour,the Yankee system would be torture. Their 
 liberty is not the liberty to outrage all that is sacred on earth, 
 to set religion at defiance, to laugh morals to scorn, to 
 undermine the foundations of social order, to mock at all 
 
 * I doubt if the power of the community over the individual has been 
 pushed to such an extent anywhere else as in New England ; in Connecti- 
 cut there were laws forbidding a person to continue tippling more than half 
 an hour at a tavern, or to drink more than half a pint of wine, and it was 
 ordered that taverns and victualling-houses should be closed at half past nine 
 o'clock. 'No young man not married could keep house without the consent 
 of the town ; and no housekeeper could receive a young man to sojourn in 
 his family without the same permission. Laws were made against swearing, 
 lying, uttering false news or reports, or using tobacco without a certificate 
 from a physician that it was necessary to health. Other regulations prohib- 
 ited smoking in public places, and this very year the city government of 
 Boston has forbidden smoking in the Mall, which, however, I do not con- 
 sider a measure of excessive rigour. It is unnecessary to say that the laws of 
 the New England colonies were extretnely severe in religious matters ; 
 every individual was required to join some Congregational society, and no 
 one was eligible to any public trust, unless he had so done. Dissenters were 
 taxed for the support of the established church. Jews and Quakers were 
 banished, and forbidden to return under pain of death. The Blue Laws of 
 Connecticut contained some curious provisions in respect to marriage, and 
 at Taunton, in Massachusetts, in 1836, two justices forbade the bans of ma- 
 trimony, on the ground that the parlies could not provide for themselves after 
 the marriage, and that they had not sufficient discernment to enter into a 
 contract of such moment. 

 
 340 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 traditions and all received opinions ; it is neither the 
 liberty of being a monarchist in a republican country, nor 
 that of sacrificing the honour of the poor man's wife or 
 daughter to one's base passions ; it is not even the liberty 
 to enjoy one's wealth by a public display, for public 
 opinion has its sumptuary laws, to which all must conform 
 under pain of moral outlawry ; nor even that of living in 
 private different from the rest of the world. The liberty 
 of the Yankee is essentially limited and special like the 
 nature of the race. We should consider it as framed after 
 the model of the liberty of Figaro ; but the Yankee is 
 satisfied with it, because it leaves him all the latitude he 
 desires, and because of all the lessons of the Bible, that of 
 the forbidden fruit, which we have not been able to fix in 
 our brain, has made the deepest impression on his. 
 
 As the Yankee does riot suffer under these restraints, 
 as he is, or what amounts to the same thing, thinks him- 
 self, free, a preventive authority is unnecessary for him. 
 This is the reason why there is no appearance of authority 
 in New England, and that an armed force, a police, are 
 even more unknown there than in the rest of the Union. 
 The absence of a visible authority imposes on us, and we 
 think that the American in general, and the Yankee in 
 particular, is more free than we are. I am persuaded, 
 however, that if we measure liberty by the number of 
 actions that are permitted or tolerated in public and private 
 life, the advantage is on our side, not only in comparison 
 with New England, but also with the white population of 
 the South. 
 
 The Virginian is more disposed to understand liberty in 
 our manner. His disposition has a greater resemblance to 
 ours ; his faculties are much less special, more general 
 than those of the Yankee ; his mind is more ardent, his 
 tastes more varied. But it is the Yankee that now rules 
 the Union ; it is his liberty which has given its principal
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 341 
 
 features to the model of American liberty. Yet to extend 
 its empire, it has been obliged to borrow some of the 
 characteristic traits of Virginian liberty ; or, I might say, 
 of French liberty, for the high-priest of American demo- 
 cracy was a Virginian, who had imbibed in Paris the doc- 
 trines of the philosophy of the 18th century. American 
 liberty, as it now is, may be considered the result of a 
 mixture, in unequal proportions, of the theories of Jeffer- 
 son with the New England usages. From these dissimi- 
 lar tendencies has resulted a series of contradictory mea- 
 sures, which have become strangely complicated with each 
 other, and which might puzzle and deceive a careless 
 observer. It is in consequence of these opposite influences 
 in the bosom of American society, that such conflicting 
 judgments have been passed upon it ; it is because the 
 Yankee type is at present the stronger, whilst the Virginian 
 was superior in the period of the revolution, that the ideas 
 which the sight of America now suggests, are so different 
 from those which she inspired at the epoch of Indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 CHARLESTON, SEPTEMBER 1, 1835. 
 
 THE United States are certainly the land of promise for 
 the labouring class. What a contrast between our Europe 
 and America ! After landing in New York, I thought 
 every day was Sunday, for the whole population that 
 throngs Broadway seemed to be arrayed in their Sunday's
 
 342 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 best. None of those countenances ghastly with the pri- 
 vations or the foul air of Paris ; nothing like our wretched 
 scavengers, our ragmen, and corresponding classes of the 
 other sex. Every man was warmly clad in an outer gar- 
 ment ; every woman had her cloak and bonnet of the 
 latest Paris fashion. Rags, filth, and suffering degrade the 
 woman even more than the man ; and one of the most 
 striking features in the physiognomy of the United States, 
 is, undeniably, the change which has been introduced, 
 in the train of the general prosperity, into the physical 
 condition of women.* The earnings of the man being 
 sufficient for the support of the family, the woman has no 
 other duties than the care of the household, a circumstance 
 still more advantageous for her children than for herself. 
 It is now a universal rule among the Anglo-Americans, 
 that the woman is exempt from all heavy work, and she 
 is never seen, for instance, taking part in the labours of 
 the field, nor in carrying burdens.f Thus freed from 
 employments unsuited to her delicate constitution, the 
 sex has also escaped that hideous ugliness and repulsive 
 coarseness of complexion which toil and privation every 
 where else bring upon them. Every woman here has the 
 features as well as the dress of a lady ; every woman here 
 is called a lady, and strives to appear so. You would 
 search in vain among the Anglo-Americans, from the 
 mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi, for 
 -one of those wretched objects, who are feminine only with 
 the physiologist, in whom our cities abound, or for one of 
 those haggish beldams that fill our markets and three 
 
 * The legal condition of all classes of females in the United States is 
 the same as that of the women of the middle classes in England. The 
 same is the case with their moral condition, except that they have even more 
 liberty before marriage, and are more dependent after. 
 
 t In England a woman is never seen, as with us, bearing a hamper of 
 dung on her back, or labouring at the forge.
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 343 
 
 fourths of our fields. You will find specimens of the for- 
 mer class only among the Indians and negroes, and of the 
 latter, only among the Canadian French and Pennsylvania 
 Germans ; for their women labour at least as much as the 
 men. It is the glory of the English race, that they have 
 ever and every where, as much as possible, interpreted the 
 superiority of the man to the woman, as reserving to the 
 former the charge of the ruder and harder forms of toil. 
 A country in which woman is treated according to this 
 principle presents the aspect of a new and better world. 
 
 Figure to yourself an Irish peasant, who at home could 
 scarcely earn enough to live on potatoes, who would look 
 upon himself as a rich man if he owned an acre of ground, 
 but who, on stepping ashore at New York, finds himself 
 able to earn a dollar a day by the mere strength of his 
 arm. He feeds and lodges himself for two dollars a week, 
 and at the end of a fortnight he may have saved enough 
 to buy ten acres of the most fertile land in the world. 
 The distance from New York to the West, is great, it is 
 true ; but the fare on the great canal is trifling, and he can 
 easily pay his way by the work of his hands. It is also 
 true, that the poorest Irishman would not think of buying 
 so little as ten acres ; the least that one buys in the West 
 is eighty. What of that ? The savings of a few months 
 will enable him to compass them ; besides, Uncle Sam 
 favours emigrants, and if, in theory, he does not sell his 
 land on credit, he is, in fact, very indulgent to the pio- 
 neer who comes to subdue the savage wilderness, and he 
 allows him to occupy the soil temporarily without charge. 
 Thus the Irish, who would go to fisticuffs with any body 
 for denying in their presence that the isle of Erin was a 
 terrestrial paradise, and who, under the inspiration of 
 whiskey, sing the glories of that first pearl of the sea, quit 
 it by fifty thousands for the United States. On their 
 arrival, they cannot believe their own eyes ; they feel of
 
 344 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 themselves to find out whether they are not under some 
 spell. They do not dare to describe to then- friends in 
 Europe the streams of milk and honey that flow through 
 this promised land.* 
 
 Even in this section of the country, where the workman 
 in the towns and the labourer in the country, instead of being 
 as in the North the sovereigns of the country, are slaves, 
 there is more plenty, more physical comfort among the la- 
 bouring class than is found amongst us. The coloured popu- 
 lation, therefore, increases in numbers faster than our rural 
 population. Not that our peasant gives birth to fewer 
 children than the blacks of Virginia and Carolina ; but 
 death, led by the hand of want, is active in keeping down 
 the excessive multiplication of arms that would soon be- 
 come formidable competitors of the fathers, and in closing 
 forever mouths that would cry for bread which their pa- 
 rents could not supply. The attention of the benevolent 
 in Europe has long been directed towards the reduction of 
 the public expenditures, and a more equal distribution of 
 the burden of taxation, as a means of improving the con- 
 dition of the poor ; but all these plans, supposing them to 
 succeed according to the views of the projectors, would 
 merely amount to taking a few coppers less from the 
 pockets of the poorer class. Whilst a system of measures 
 concerted in such a manner as to diffuse among them a 
 love of order and habits of regularity and industry, to en- 
 large the field of labour, and to render its terms more 
 favourable to them, would have the effect to fill those 
 pockets. The relief of one class of the community by 
 merely shifting its burden to the back of another, has a 
 
 * An Irishman, who had recently arrived, showed his master a letter 
 which he had just written to his family : "But, Patrick," said his master, 
 " why do you say that you have meat three times a week, when you have 
 it three times a day ? " " Why is it ? " replied Pat ; " it is because they 
 wouldn't believe me, if I told them so." 

 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 345 
 
 revolutionary character which ill agrees with the notions 
 of a generation that is weary of revolutions, or with the 
 nature of a government established for the very purpose of 
 staying the revolutionary flood ; on the contrary, all that 
 develops the resources of industry is in harmony with the 
 present leaning of all minds. Labour is an admirable in- 
 strument of concord, for all interests gain by the prosper- 
 ity of industry. This is the pure and true source of all 
 wealth, public and private. Labour alone creates ; and it 
 is it alone that can relieve the wants of the needy, without 
 impoverishing him who has enough, or even reducing the 
 luxury of the opulent ; that can give wealth to some, com- 
 petency to others, and to all the fowl in the pot, which, 
 since the revolt of Luther, has been the great social prob- 
 lem in the material order of things. 
 
 The admirable prosperity of the United States is the 
 fruit of labour, much more than of any reform in taxation. 
 The soil has not the luxuriant fertility of the tropical 
 regions ; roasted larks fly into nobody's mouth ; but the 
 American is a model of industry. This country is not a 
 second edition of the Greek and Roman republics ; it is a 
 gigantic commercial house, which owns its wheat-fields in 
 the Northwest, its cotton, rice and tobacco plantations in 
 the South, which maintains its sugar works, its establish- 
 ments for salting provisions, and some good beginnings of 
 manufactures, which has its harbours in the Northeast 
 thronged with fine ships, well built and better manned, 
 by means of which it undertakes to carry for the world, 
 and to speculate on the wants of all nations. Every 
 American has a passion for work, and the means of grati- 
 fying it. If he wishes to cultivate the ground, he finds 
 waste land enough for his farm in the Northwest or the 
 Southwest. If he chooses to be a mechanic, that he may 
 finally become a manufacturer, he has no difficulty in get- 
 ting credit ; he finds unemployed waterfalls all along the 
 44
 
 346 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 rivers, of which he takes possession, and on which he sets 
 up his wheels. If he has a taste for commerce, he puts 
 himself into the hands of a merchant, who after some 
 years of apprenticeship and trial, sends him to take charge 
 of his business in the interior, or to the Antilles, or South 
 America, or Liverpool, or Havre, or Canton. He may 
 labour without apprehension, and produce without stint ; 
 having no rent to pay, his flour, his salt provisions, fear 
 no competition in the markets of South America and the 
 sugar islands. As for cotton, the United States alone al- 
 most supply the world, and he cannot plant enough. The 
 career open to the Americans, as active, bold, and intelli- 
 gent merchants, is unlimited, and is entered with admira- 
 ble spirit and success ; they beat their rivals, even the 
 English, on every field. If the American devotes himself 
 to some branch of domestic industry, here he finds ample 
 room for activity, for the home consumption is indefinite ; 
 every body here enjoys himself, or at least spends. Every 
 one produces much, because all consume much ; each con- 
 sumes freely, because he gains freely, has no fears for the 
 morrow neither for himself nor his children, or at least 
 takes no thought for it. 
 
 The most efficient measures of the public administration 
 for the amelioration of the condition of the people in 
 France, would be such as would tend to increase the in- 
 dustrial qualities of the mass, and to furnish them with the 
 means of putting these qualities in action ; such are, a 
 system of industrial education ; the establishment of insti- 
 tutions of credit, which should place within the reach 
 of all, the instruments of industry, or, in other words, cap- 
 ital, which is now inaccessible not only to the operative and 
 the labourer, but to a great proportion of the bourgeoisie ; 
 the execution of a complete system of routes of communi- 
 cation, from village roads to railroads, for manufactures 
 and commerce are impracticable where facilities of trans-
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 347 
 
 portation do not exist ; the modification of many laws and 
 customs, judicial and administrative, that now embarrass 
 industry, without being of the least advantage in any 
 point of view. 
 
 I dare hardly speak of popular education, where I now 
 am. The people in the Southern States, are slaves. The 
 maxim here is that they need no instruction ; to instil into 
 them a sentiment of fear is the only moral nature suitable 
 to their condition. They have, therefore, no other educa- 
 tion than that of their own hands, and that, of course, must 
 be limited, because their intellectual and moral nature is 
 in fetters. In the Northern States, the labouring classes 
 are whites, and there the law makes a liberal provision for 
 popular instruction. Almost every where in the North, all 
 the children go to the primary schools. Elementary edu- 
 cation is there of a more practical character than with us ; 
 it is our primary instruction, with the omission of the 
 ideal, and the addition of some instruction in commercial 
 and economical affairs; but there is no practical industrial 
 education here except by apprenticeship. There are no 
 mechanical or agricultural seminaries. It is not thought 
 necessary here to shut up the young in such institutions to 
 inspire them with a taste for commerce, agriculture, or the 
 mechanical arts ; they suck it in with their mother's milk ; 
 they breathe the air of industry under the paternal roof, , 
 in the places of public resort, in the public meetings, every 
 where, at all times, and in every act of life. When an 
 American wishes to learn a trade, he goes into the work- 
 shop, the counting-house, the manufactory, as an appren- 
 tice. By seeing others act, he learns how to act himself : 
 he becomes an artisan, a manufacturer, a merchant ; all 
 the faculties of his firm and watchful mind, all the ener- 
 gies of his ambitious spirit are centred in his workshop or 
 warehouse. He directs all his powers to making himself 
 master of his business, to learn the lessons of others' ex-
 
 348 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 perience, and he succeeds of course, as every one does who 
 obeys the voice of his destiny. I do not pretend that the 
 Americans are right, in not having recourse to a theoretical 
 preparation for a particular branch of business, for which 
 we have instituted such costly establishments. I only re- 
 cord the fact, with the observation that they get on very 
 well without it. Our national character has little dispo- 
 sition for business ; we work from necessity and not from 
 choice. Our ideas have little of a commercial or mechan- 
 ical turn. To make a Frenchman a skilful husbandman, 
 an able merchant, a dexterous mechanic, a long and pain- 
 ful training is necessary ; he must change his natural 
 bent, and metamorphose all his thoughts and habits ; in a 
 word, with us a special professional education must precede 
 apprenticeship. The American learns by example merely J 
 we must learn by general principles ; we stand more in 
 need of them, and we have a greater aptitude for master- 
 ing them, than they. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Before passing to the institutions best suited to develop 
 industry, I would observe that a political system which 
 should be particularly calculated to create and sustain them, 
 cannot be taxed with materialism. Industry influences 
 the moral nature of man ; the material prosperity of a peo- 
 ple has an important bearing on the public liberties. Men 
 cannot practically enjoy the rights secured to them by 
 law, when they are manacled and fettered by poverty ; 
 the English and their children in America call compe- 
 tency, independence. The Anglo-Americans have reached 
 wealth through their political liberty ; other nations, and 
 we, I think, are of the number, must arrive at political 
 franchises by the progress of national wealth. I now come 
 to the consideration of a credit system. 
 
 Suppose, on one side, the land -holder who has granaries 
 bursting with corn, his stable filled with cattle, his store-
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 349 
 
 house crowded with barrels of whiskey and salt meat ; 
 then, the merchant with his warehouses full of cloth, and 
 the grocer, well supplied with tea, coffee, and sugar ; and 
 on the other, the labourer, the mason, the carpenter, the 
 smith, all skilled in their trade and wanting work to sup- 
 ply them with daily food. A canal or a railroad is pro- 
 jected ; the country has capital enough to construct it, 
 since it contains the arms to execute the works, and the 
 necessaries for subsisting the labourers. The construction 
 of the work is indispensable in order to enable the work- 
 man to turn his muscles to account, and gain his daily 
 bread, and to give the merchant a market for his goods. 
 Now in this case, amongst us, there is no other medium of 
 communication between the labourer and the holder of 
 articles of consumption, than the engineer, a man of sci- 
 ence but not of capital, and the citizens of the towns which 
 are interested in the scheme ; these last have a competence 
 and no more, and they have no means of raising, on their 
 lands or their houses, the ready money which rriust serve 
 as a medium of exchange between the wares of the mer- 
 chant, the produce of the cultivator, and the labour of the 
 operative. Amongst us, therefore, the most useful projects 
 remain on paper. In this country, by the side of the engi- 
 neer and the citizen, you have one or more banks, in which 
 all, labourers, landholders, and traders, put confidence, 
 often, indeed, much more than is deserved. The bank 
 guaranties to the cultivator and the trader payment for 
 their produce and merchandise, and to the labourer, his 
 wages ; for this end, it offers the share-holder of the pro- 
 jected enterprise, in exchange for his personal engagement 
 renewable at a certain date, and often on the pledge of 
 the very canal or railroad shares, a paper-money, which 
 the labourer receives in payment of his wages, and with 
 which he procures the necessary supplies from the pro-
 
 350 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 ducer or the trader. Thus every judicious and practi- 
 cable project is at once carried out into execution. 
 
 In order to arrive at the same result amongst us, it 
 would be necessary, in the first place, that we should 
 possess somewhat more of that genius for business which 
 is the characteristic of the American, and, in the next, 
 that the banks should be able to accept with confidence 
 the engagements of the share-holder of the work ; the latter 
 requisite, could not be obtained as in the United States, 
 because amongst us, except in the manufacturing towns, 
 the bourgeois in general does not engage in business ; he 
 is a proprietor living on his income and not increasing it. 
 The American bourgeois, on the contrary, is actively en- 
 gaged in business, and is constantly employed in increa- 
 sing his means ; and besides, the banks have more hold 
 on his real property, than they could have in France. 
 . Finally, it would be necessary that the public, proprie- 
 tors and labourers, traders as well as landholders, should 
 have full confidence in the bills issued by the bank, which 
 is impossible in a country where all paper-money suggests 
 the idea of assignats. Even if the people had not that 
 disastrous experiment before their eyes, it would be diffi- 
 cult to teach them to look upon a scrap of paper, although 
 redeemable at sight with coin, as equivalent to the metals. 
 A metallic currency, has, in our notions, a superiority to 
 any other representative of value, which to an American 
 or an Englishman is quite incomprehensible ; to our peas- 
 ants, it is the object of a mysterious feeling, a real worship : 
 and, in this respect we are all of us more or less peasants. 
 The Americans, on the other hand, have a firm faith in 
 paper ; and it is not a blind faith, for if we have had our 
 assignats, they have had their continental money, and 
 they need not go far back in their history to find a record 
 of the failure of the banks in a body. Their confidence 
 is founded in reason, their courage is a matter of reflexion.
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 351 
 
 Last winter, for example, it was known to the public that 
 certain banks in New York had on hand only five dollars 
 in specie for one hundred paper-dollars in circulation, and 
 even less. In France this would have been the signal of 
 a general panic, and the bill-holders would have thrown 
 themselves in crowds upon the bank to exchange their 
 paper for coin. The bank, thus stormed, would have 
 stopped payment; fifty or seventy bills in a hundred, 
 would have become mere rags in the hands of the holders, 
 and what would be more fatal, the banks, which lean upon 
 each other, and hold each other's notes to a large amount, 
 would have failed one after another, as those of the Feder- 
 al District did last April. Each bank failure would have 
 been followed by numerous individual failures, which 
 would have involved other banks in their fall, and the 
 country would have been ruined. The Americans in this 
 fearful crisis, did not quail ; they stood firm, like veterans 
 under the fire of a battery or encountering a cloud of Arabs 
 at the foot of the pyramids with bayonets crossed and ser- 
 ried files. None of the New York banks stopped payment, 
 and scarcely six or seven small banks failed through the 
 country. 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves ; it will be a long time 
 before we shall be in a condition, in France, to enjoy such 
 a system of credit as exists in the United States or Eng- 
 land ; in this respect we are yet in a state of barbarism, 
 from which we cannot pass to a more perfect condition of 
 things, except by a complete revolution in our commercial 
 habits and ideas, and even to a certain degree of our na- 
 tional manners. 
 
 I do not pretend to decide beforehand what the precise 
 organisation of a system of credit for France should be ; 
 but I think it may be safely affirmed, that the system 
 which prevails here would not do for us. In appropriating 
 to ourselves the improvements of the English and of their
 
 352 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 successors in America, we must modify them in conformity 
 with the genius of the nation, or they will wither on 
 our soil. As the East is the cradle of religion, so England 
 in our day is the mould in which the political and com- 
 mercial institutions that seem destined to rule the world 
 have been cast ; but as the religious conceptions of the 
 East have had to undergo a radical change in order to gain 
 a footing in the West, so the political and commercial 
 creations of our neighbours, must undergo a transforma- 
 tion before they can become fixed amongst us. Coming 
 into the world under circumstances of a peculiar nature, 
 amidst a people of an original and peculiar character, bom 
 under the unhealthy shadow of conquest and civil war, 
 they are not suited to be transferred bodily to another soil. 
 They are already undergoing modifications in America, 
 although they are here amongst the scions of the English 
 stock. Among the people of the south of Europe and 
 among us, when they have taken their final shape, it is 
 probable that they will no more resemble their British 
 type, than a Benedictin or a Sister of Charity resembles an 
 Indian fakir or dervish. It would be presumptuous to 
 attempt to pronounce at present what precise form the 
 institutions of credit will assume ; yet it is reasonable to 
 presume, that to be in harmony with our character and 
 disposition, they must lean upon the government, combine 
 their operation with its action, become, in a word, public 
 establishments, and they must be ready to extend a large 
 share of their benefits to the agricultural interest. 
 
 The public credit, which, in Prance, must be the bulwark 
 of private credit, still feels and will continue to feel the effect 
 of our former bankruptcy. It should be our aim to make 
 the breaches of the public faith under the monarchy and 
 under the republic forgotten, and to strengthen the foun- 
 dations and enlarge- the sphere of the national credit, 
 which will thus become a suitable basis for the banks, for
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 353 
 
 in France we shall not trust in the bankers, nor will 
 the banks have confidence in themselves, any further than 
 they are propped up by the government, and become in 
 fact public establishments. Many sound heads consider 
 it indispensable that the system of credit, should be, in 
 many respects, amalgamated with the financial system of 
 the State. This is no rash speculation, or untried no- 
 velty. In the Southern and Western States, which, 
 like France, are chiefly agricultural, the principal banks 
 are dependent on the State governments, they are employed 
 in collecting the taxes, and transferring funds on account 
 of the State .treasury. This is the case, in a greater or 
 less degree, in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, and 
 still more so in Indiana and Illinois. 
 
 The greatest change, which institutions of credit will 
 have' to undergo in their introduction amongst us, will be 
 the adaptation of them to the wants of agriculture. We 
 are more an agricultural than a manufacturing people ; 
 three fourths or four fifths of our population live by agri- 
 culture. The English are especially devoted to manufac- 
 tures and commerce ; their banks are most easily acces- 
 sible to the merchant, next to the manufacturer, and but 
 little or not at all, to the agriculturist. The feudal traits, 
 which landed property still retains among them, contri- 
 bute to this result. In this country, the banks have been 
 organised on the English model. They have become ex- 
 cessively numerous in the Northern States,* which are 
 
 * In 1811, out of 88 local banks, there were 55, or two thirds, in New 
 England and New York, although those States contained but little more than 
 one third of the population. In 1834, the States north of the Potomac had 
 414 banks, with a capital of 106 millions; the Southern and Western States 
 had only 88 with a capital of 60 millions, about one half of which were in a 
 few commercial towns. The population of the former was then 6,500,000, 
 of the latter 7,500,000 ; the ratio of the banks, therefore, was as 4 to 3, 
 while that of the population was as 6 to 7. Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 alone, in which the character of the mother-country is most strongly pre- 
 
 45
 
 354 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 inhabited by a people eminently possessing the manufac- 
 turing and commercial spirit. Those which have been 
 established in the agricultural States of the South and 
 West, have fallen through at different crises, of which 
 the most disastrous was that of 1819. In 1828, the local 
 banks had ceased to exist in Kentucky and Missouri ; each 
 of the States of Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, 
 and Alabama, had but one, or had not yet established any. 
 At present they are created in the South and West with 
 something of a public character, the state either becoming 
 the principal share-holder or guarantying the loan for raising 
 a capital. Several of them have a decided tendency to 
 connect themselves with the agricultural interest. Lou- 
 isiana has adopted the most comprehensive and important 
 measures in this respect.* 
 
 It is evident that the extension of credit in France 
 would be the means of a greater saving to the people, 
 than any reform in the budget. The average rate of 
 interest on all transactions of all kinds is at least 1 5 or 20, 
 perhaps, 25 per cent. Suppose that this could be reduced 
 
 served, had 17*4 banks or one third of the whole number of local banks, 
 with a capital of 40 millions, or one-fourth of the whole banking capital 
 of the country, although their population was only one thirteenth of the 
 whole population. The extension of the culture of cotton, and of the trade 
 which it creates, has since, however, tended to turn the balance in favour of 
 the south, and several large banks have been established in the southern 
 capitals with branches in the interior. 
 
 * Several bank charters in Louisiana contain a provision obliging the bank 
 to lend a large proportion of the capital to the planters. The Citizen's 
 Bank is bound to advance one half its capital to landholders, beside which 
 they have the advantage of being share-holders without having paid up any- 
 thing. The bank borrowed its effective capital of European capitalists; its 
 nominal capital is double that sum. It gives in return mortgages on the 
 estates of the share-holders to that amount, with the guarantee of the mortgage 
 by the State. Each share-holder is entitled to credit to the amount of half 
 his stock at the rate of six per cent. The other half of the capital is devoted 
 to the commercial operations of the bank. The share-holders then, have their 
 share in the profits. It will be seen that this system depends on the legisla- 
 tion in regard to mortgages.
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 355 
 
 only two per cent., a result which does not seem very diffi- 
 cult to be obtained, it is plain, that as positive a saving 
 would be made to the country as could be made by a dimi- 
 nution of the expenses of government, and that the former 
 would he applicable to as many millions as the latter would 
 be to thousands. It is not possible to give an exact esti- 
 mate of the amount of the annual transactions in France, it 
 must be enormous, for every time an article of property 
 changes hands, there is a transaction affected by the rate of 
 interest ; now the total annual produce of French industry 
 is estimated at nearly 2,000 millions dollars ; and we must 
 suppose the amount of transactions to be ten or twelve 
 times greater. The annual amount of commercial trans- 
 actions alone is about 4,000 millions. Admitting the 
 average credit to be four months, and the mass of trans- 
 actions to amount to 16,000 millions, a saving of two per 
 cent, a year would be equal to 100 millions. Add to this 
 that the creation of institutions of credit would make a saving 
 once for all of 300 or 400 millions, by the substitution of 
 paper for a portion of the metallic currency. ( See Letter V. ) 
 It would be superfluous to dwell upon the salutary 
 influence of a judicious system of public works on 
 the prosperity of all classes, and more especially of the 
 lower classes. On this point every one is already con- 
 vinced ; it would be an enterprise worthy of a great people 
 to undertake such a system, which should include canals, 
 local roads, and railroads on the great routes ; which 
 should drain our bogs and supply water to the districts that 
 need irrigation ; which should convert Rouen and Havre, 
 Lille and Calais, Orleans, Reims, and Troyes into suburbs 
 of Paris ; ^should consummate the union of Belgium with 
 France ; should make Strasburg one of the greatest entre- 
 pots in the world ; should restore life to Bordeaux, which 
 is now pining away, by giving it a more easy access to the 
 central and southern departments ; should revive Nantes,
 
 356 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 which is dead, by connecting it with the flourishing inte- 
 rior provinces, and particularly with Paris, the heart of 
 France ; should bring Lyons into contact with the Rhine 
 and the Danube ; should develop our mineral wealth, 
 which now lies useless in the bowels of the earth, for 
 want of means of transportation ; should not, as is too 
 often the case, overlook our peaceful and laborious country 
 population, but should deliver every farm and village from 
 the six months' blockade, to which they are now con- 
 demned by the mud of every winter. This would be 
 a grand and noble enterprise. 
 
 There is a common bond of union between the various 
 branches of social improvement ; a good system of public 
 works would exercise a powerful influence on the exten- 
 sion of credit; and, reciprocally, a liberal system of public 
 and private credit, would communicate activity to public 
 enterprises. I go further ; it is impossible that our public 
 works should be carried forward with vigour, without the 
 aid of credit. To pretend to execute them wholly by 
 means of taxes, would be madness. Without public and 
 private credit, the Americans would never have had any 
 public works. They have entered upon the construction 
 of their great canals and their innumerable railroads only 
 through the instrumentality of the banks and their loans. 
 In 1828, the three cities of the Federal District, Washing- 
 ton, Georgetown, and Alexandria, having together a popu- 
 lation of 32,000 souls, with little trade, no manufactures, 
 or agricultural resources, for the country around is sterile, 
 subscribed 1,500,000 dollars towards the construction of 
 the great canal from the Chesapeake to the Ohio, raising 
 the funds by a loan in Holland. Our large towns Bor- 
 deaux, Marseilles, Rouen, Lyons, will have canals and 
 railroads, whenever they shall see fit to do with moderation 
 what Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria have 
 attempted on too great a scale.
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 357 
 
 The improvement of the means of transportation often 
 causes such a fall in the price of articles, that the construc- 
 tion of a canal or road relieves the inhabitants to an extent 
 much exceeding the amount of the most oppressive tax. 
 In France, where wine is abundant, and where it is a 
 light drink which does not brutify a man, it is important 
 to bring it within the reach of the poorer classes, and to 
 accustom them to the daily use of it. There are still sev- 
 eral districts in central and southern France, in which 
 wine is transported on the back of mules, for a distance of 
 40 miles. Transportation, the same distance, by a canal, 
 would only be one sixth of the price of mule carriage, or 
 would make a saving of five cents a gallon, which is more 
 than the excise on the common wines ; so that the con- 
 struction of a canal, considered in this light, would be a 
 greater relief to certain consumers, than the suppression of 
 the excise. 
 
 In regard to legislation, we have reason to congratulate 
 ourselves on having a uniform system of laws, instead of a 
 jumble of rules and customs derived from all ages and 
 various sources. The spirit of Napoleon pervaded the 
 creation of this noble work ; but Napoleon was wholly 
 pre-occupied with Roman ideas ; he wished to found an 
 empire of adamant on the Roman model ; his counsellors 
 were possessed with the notion that the Roman law was 
 pure, absolute, immutable justice. They have, therefore, 
 given us a code of laws, protecting various interests rather 
 according to the degree of importance which they possess- 
 ed eighteen hundred years ago, than that which they have 
 acquired in modern times. In the time of the Romans, 
 landed property was almost the only property ; agriculture 
 was the only branch of industry held in respect ; manu- 
 factures were merely a department of domestic labour, and 
 were carried on by the slaves in the house ; commerce 
 was abandoned to foreigners and freedmen. At that time, 
 no one dreamed of the possibility of those huge factories
 
 358 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 on the English plan, or of that powerful machinery which 
 is the soul of our industry ; or those immense docks and 
 and store-houses, which enable a man, in his closet, to 
 arrange and direct the most extensive operations, without 
 touching an article of merchandise, or even inspecting 
 samples, merely by setting his signature to a warrant or a 
 receipt. The system of accounts was then unknown ; the 
 idea of banks did not occur to the most far-sighted intel- 
 lect. Governments took little thought for the means of 
 making exchanges sure, easy, and speedy ; the great roads 
 opened by the praetors and emperors, were military roads. 
 Little care was given to economy of time ; for time has a 
 value only in an industrious community.* On the con- 
 trary, there was every reason for endeavouring to keep 
 property in the great families. Landed property, with re- 
 ference to which all the laws were framed, is inconsistent 
 with the idea of constant change. The object of legisla- 
 tion was stability and permanency ; the forms which it 
 established, were favourable to delay. 
 
 Following this example, Napoleon and his counsellors 
 have given us a code of laws, in which every thing is 
 sacrificed to landed property. The law treats the manu- 
 facturer and the merchant with suspicion it looks upon 
 them as the sons of the slave and the freedman, or at 
 least, as persons of no consideration, commoners whom it 
 is permitted to treat without ceremony. On the other 
 hand, the presumption is always in favour of the proprie- 
 tor ; he is protected not because he is a cultivator and pro- 
 ducer, but simply and abstractly because he is a proprietor, 
 
 * The Neapolitans are said to have made the following objection to a 
 company, which proposed to run a steam-boat between their city and Sicily : 
 " Your boat takes us over in one day, and yet you demand the same fare, as 
 a sail vessel which is three days. That is absurd ; how can you expect that 
 we will pay as much for being found one day as for three ? " This is the 
 reasoning of a people, who have no idea of setting an economical value on 
 time.
 
 SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 359 
 
 the owner of the soil, the successor of the Roman patri- 
 cian and the feudal lord. Thus our laws overlook the 
 importance of manufacturing industry, and the great des- 
 tiny which awaits it ; they shackle and check ti by the 
 complicated formalities to which they subject it, and the 
 vexatious details with which they embarrass its movements. 
 Let me not, however, be too severe on our code ; I do 
 not know any other, which, all things considered, is more 
 advantageous to industry. Even the American legislation 
 has retained the defects of the English laws ; it partakes 
 in their vagueness and uncertainty ; it is under the almost 
 exclusive dominion of precedents which it still borrows 
 from English decisions as if North America were still 
 an English colony. In most of the States, the undefined 
 and conflicting pretensions of the common law and equity 
 jurisdiction still remain in force. In some of the old 
 States, as Virginia, the legislation yet bears many of the 
 features of the feudal system. American law, however, 
 has the great advantage of a simpler and less expensive 
 process than ours or the English, and especially of a great 
 economy of time by a reduction of the delays attending 
 the English and French practice. As for the use of the 
 jury in civil cases, it is of doubtful expediency. I often 
 hear it said, that it would be better to leave them to three 
 judicious and irremoveable judges, than to twelve citizens, 
 who often carry their individual prejudices, or party pas- 
 sions, or class jealousies into the jury-box. With a jury, 
 the influence of a skilful advocate often weighs much, the 
 merits of the cause too little. Finally, in this country, the 
 commercial tribunals have no compulsory jurisdiction ; the 
 ordinary courts take cognizance of all causes, unless there 
 is a previous agreement between the parties to submit all 
 differences that may arise between them to arbiters or a 
 committee of the chamber of commerce, which is merely 
 a voluntary association, and is not to be found in all parts 
 of the country.
 
 360 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 
 
 AUGUSTA, (GEORGIA,) SEPTEMBER 3, 1835, 
 
 IT is impossible to foresee the time when the blacks in 
 this country shall be set free ; there is here a great gulf 
 between the black and the white. The difficulty here is 
 not exactly of a pecuniary kind ; for, to apply to the two 
 million and a half of American negroes the process which 
 the English have applied to their colonies, only 300 mil- 
 lions would be required, a sum which is not beyond the 
 means of North America. By rendering the process of 
 emancipation more gradual, so as to render it more slow and 
 safe than in the English Islands, a much less sum would be 
 sufficient ; but another obstacle occurs, against which 
 money can do nothing. The English nature is exclusive ; 
 English society is divided into an endless number of little 
 coteries, each jealous of its superior, and despising its in- 
 ferior. The Englishman is in his own country, what 
 his country is in reference to the rest of the world, an 
 islander. 
 
 This spirit of exclusiveness which prevails in society at 
 home, appears again in the relations of the English with 
 other people. The Englishman cannot fraternise with the 
 Red Skins or the blacks ; between him and them there is 
 no sympathy, no mutual confidence. The Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans have retained and even exaggerated this Irait of their 
 fathers : and to the men of the North as well as to those 
 of the South, to the Yankee as well as to the Virginian, 
 the negro is a Philistine, a son of Ham. In the States 
 without slaves, as well as in those in which slavery is 
 admitted, the elevation of the black seems impossible.
 
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 361 
 
 An American of the North or of the South, whether he 
 be rich or poor, ignorant or learned, avoids a contact with 
 the negro, as if he were infected with the plague. Free 
 or slave, well or meanly clad, the black or the man of 
 colour is always a Pariah ; he is denied a lodging at the 
 inns ; at the theatre or in the steamboats he has a distinct 
 place allotted him far from the whites ; he is excluded 
 from commerce, for he cannot set his foot on 'Change nor 
 in the banking rooms. Everywhere and always, he is 
 eminently unclean. Thus treated as vile, he almost 
 always becomes so. 
 
 In Europe, blacks or coloured persons have sometimes 
 filled high stations ; there is not an instance of the kind 
 in the United States. The republic of Hayti has its 
 accredited representatives at the court of France ; it has 
 none in Washington. An anecdote was told me at New 
 York of the disappointment of a young Haytian, who was 
 a near relation of one of Boyer's ministers, and who had 
 received a good education in France ; having arrived in 
 New York, he could not get admittance into any hotel, 
 his money was refused at the door of the theatre, he was 
 ordered out of the cabin of a steamboat, and was obliged 
 to quit the country without being able to speak to any 
 body. At Philadelphia, I heard of a man of colour who 
 had acquired wealth, a rare thing among that class, who 
 used sometimes to invite whites to dine with him, and 
 who did not sit at table, but waited upon his guests 
 himself. At the dessert, however, upon their pressing 
 him to be seated with them, he would yield to their 
 urgency. At the end of 1833, in one of the New Eng- 
 gland States, and I think it was in Massachusetts,* a man 
 
 " In Massachusetts and most of New England the blacks are legally 
 citizens, and, as such, have the right of voting ; they do not, however, 
 at present exercise this right, either because they are prevented from doing 
 so, or because their names are designedly omitted on the list of tax-payers, 
 
 46
 
 362 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 of colour being on board a steamer with liis wife, wished 
 to get her admitted into the ladies' cabin ; the captain 
 refused her admission. A suit was, therefore, brought 
 against the captain, by the man, who was desirous of 
 having it decided by the courts, whether free people of 
 colour, conducting themselves with propriety, could enjoy 
 the same privileges with whites in a State, in which they 
 were recognised as citizens by the laws. He gained his 
 cause on the first hearing, but was cast on appeal. 
 
 The diiferent nations of the .great Christian family, after 
 having for ages received the doctrines taught by the suc- 
 cessors of St. Peter, have selected out of the Christian 
 scheme, some one principle most congenial to their nature, 
 and made it the basis of their character. The French, a 
 most, Christian people, have chosen the principle of uni- 
 versal charity. In our .eyes, there .are no longer Gentiles ; 
 our prepossessions in favour of foreigners increase as the 
 square of the distance that separates their country from 
 ours. The Spanish, a chivalric people, have adopted with 
 enthusiasm the adoration of the Virgin, which is of a 
 more modern origin. The Protestants have taken up the 
 principle of individual conscience, and this is nearly all that 
 they have accepted from Christianity ; they have renounced 
 the successive additions of the church to the faith of the 
 Apostles, and they have even rejected a part of what 
 Christ himself had engrafted on the Jewish theology. 
 
 which in some States forms the list of vuters. [Blacks vote and always have 
 voted in Massachusetts. TRANSL.] The constitution of Connecticut, 
 formed in 1818, excludes them from this franchise. In New York, real 
 estate of the value of 250 dollars, and the payment of taxes is made 
 the electoral qualification of blacks. [The new constitution of Pennsylvania, 
 formed in 1838, restricts the right of suffrage to the whites, although it was 
 extended to blacks by the old constitution. TRANSL.] The Western 
 States, in which slavery does not exist, do not admit blacks to vote, and in 
 the slave-holding States, it may readily be imagined that they do not enjoy 
 that privilege.
 
 SOCIAL KEFORM. 363 
 
 Among Protestants, the Yankees have carried this retro- 
 grade tendency to the greatest extreme ; they have, except 
 in some few points, relapsed into Judaism, and returned to 
 to the Mosaic law. They appeal in preference to the 
 maxims and doctrines of the Old Testament ; they, borrow 
 their names from it, and amongst the peculiarities that 
 strike a Frenchmen in New England, one of the strongest 
 is the great prevalence of Hebrew names, such as Phineas, 
 Ebenezer, Judah, Hiram, Obadiah, Ezra, &c., on the signs 
 and in advertisements. 
 
 As the religion of the people exercises a controlling in- 
 fluence over the general tone of its feeling and character, 
 the Yankees, having thus fallen back into Judaism, possess, 
 like the Jews, that exclusive spirit which was already in- 
 herent in their insular origin. The fact is, that their 
 religious notions square exactly with this depression of the 
 blacks. The blacks seem to them inferior beings ; they 
 revolt against the thought of any assimilation with them, 
 even in the slightest degree ; a mixture of the two races, 
 r, as they call it, amalgamation, is in their eyes an abom- 
 ination, a sacrilege, which would deserve to be punished, 
 as the sin of the Hebrews with the daughters of Moab was 
 punished. The emancipation of the negro comprises two 
 things ; the one, formal, that is manumission by the mas- 
 ter, which it would not be difficult to effect, if a sufficient 
 indemnity were offered to the planters and the country 
 could pay it ; and the other, moral, that is, a real acknowl- 
 edgment of the rights of the black, by admitting him to 
 the personal privileges of the white man, which would 
 meet with insurmountable obstacles at the North as well 
 as the South, and would, perhaps, be even more repugnant 
 to the former than to the latter. 
 
 The principal difficulty of emancipation, so far as re- 
 gards the slave himself, is also of a moral character. To 
 render him fit for the enjoyment of liberty, it is necessary
 
 364 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 that he should be initiated in the duties and dignity of 
 man, that he should labour in order to pay his tax to soci- 
 ety, and maintain his family with decency, that he should 
 learn to obey other motives than the fear of the lash. 
 He must learn the sentiment of self-respect ; he must wish 
 and know how to be a father, son, husband. He only can 
 have a perfect right to liberty, who is in a condition to 
 enjoy it with profit to himself and to society. Slavery, 
 odious as it is, is one form of social order, and should be 
 preserved where no better form can be substituted for it, 
 as it must disappear where the inferior is ripe for a better 
 state of things. 
 
 In regard to the lower orders in Europe, the difficulty is 
 of the same kind with that which stands in the way of the 
 emancipation of the American slaves ; it is only different 
 in degree, and it is already half overcome. In order that the 
 hireling should be raised from his present abject state, the 
 higher" classes must be ready to treat him as a being of the 
 same nature with themselves, arid he himself must have 
 acquired higher sentiments than such as belong to his 
 present condition. He must not only be inspired with the 
 desire of being happier, but also with the ambition of being 
 better. To establish new relations between the different 
 classes, both parties must labour with that firm will, which 
 recasts ideas and habits. The question of the improve- 
 ment of the condition of the lower classes is essentially a 
 moral question. A moral remodelling of society is the 
 necessary preliminary. Now, whoever pronounces the 
 world moral in the wider sense of the term, means religion. 
 Philanthropy and philosophy have no hold on the moral 
 nature of man, unless they borrow it from religion. Re- 
 ligion only can move the hearts of all classes deep enough, 
 and enlighten the minds of all strongly enough, to cause 
 the rich and the poor to conceive new ideas of their mutu- 
 al relations, and to realize them in practice.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 365 
 
 History teaches us, that civilisation, in its successive 
 phases, has gradually improved the condition of the low- 
 er classes ; it proves also that each of the great changes 
 that have taken place in the condition of the multitude, 
 has been consummated or prepared by religion, and accom- 
 panied by a change in religion itself. It was religion that 
 struck off the fetters of the slave, that gradually freed 
 the serf from the glebe. The free principles of the French 
 revolution were only the precepts of the Christian religion 
 practised by persons who were no longer Christians, and 
 the revolutionary actors themselves gave to Christ the title 
 of sans-culotte, in their eyes a title of honour. 
 
 To render the efforts of the higher classes in favour of the 
 people vigourous and sustained, they must, then, be direct- 
 ed by religion. To raise the lower orders effectually from 
 their abasement, religion must fix them steadily on that 
 high moral level, to which they have occasionally soared 
 by sublime, but fitful and soon drooping flights. Now, the 
 higher classes have not faith. If among the highest, the 
 irreligious philosophy of the 18th century has of late lost 
 adherents, it restores and increases its numbers from among 
 the lower ranks. Incredulity has lowered its aim a peg ; 
 its train has lost in quality, but gained in quantity. Irre- 
 ligion is at work among the populace of the cities, disposes 
 them to revolt, and would make them unfit for the regular 
 enjoyment of liberty. When we have roads, when schools 
 have taught the whole population to read, which will be 
 soon, you will see irreligion infecting the country people, 
 if you do not provide against its approaches beforehand. 
 
 Christianity, or at least Catholicism, seems to be on the 
 eve of suffering a general desertion amongst us. And yet 
 how far are we from having drawn from the Christian 
 principles, which some among us affect to consider as ex- 
 hausted, all the elements of popular liberty and happiness 
 which they contain ! We are a most Christian people in
 
 366 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 this sense, that we believe in the unity of the whole 
 human family, and we prove it by our good will to all 
 nations ; but it seems as if we expend abroad all the heat 
 that Christianity has developed in our souls. We, the 
 apostles of the brotherhood of nations, we have not yet 
 breathed into our relations to each other the principle of 
 the fraternity of men. We of the middle class, the sons of 
 freedmen. think that labourers, the sons of slaves, are of a 
 different nature from ourselves. We have still a remnant 
 of the old pagan leaven at the bottom of our hearts. We 
 do not, indeed, with Aristotle, teach the doctrine of two 
 distinct natures, the free nature and the slave nature, but 
 we act in practice as if we were brought up in that faith. 
 We are not yet become the fathers and elder brothers of 
 the peasant and the operative ; but in our relations to them, 
 we are still their masters, and hard masters too. 
 
 And unfortunately, whilst society, driven about by the 
 waves, at the mercy of chance and without a compass, is 
 exposed to disasters, which the control of religion alone 
 can prevent, religion makes no effort to resume the helm 
 and recover her authority. In the midst of nations which 
 are rushing onward at every risk, Catholicism stands still, 
 silently shrouded in her mantle, with. her arms folded, and 
 her eyes bent on heaven. The Church bore all the shocks 
 of the revolutionary storm with a heroic resignation ; she 
 meekly submitted to be scourged with rods, like the Just 
 One ; like him she has been fixed to the cross, and has 
 opened her mouth only to pray for her executioners. But 
 the sufferings of the Just have saved sinners and changed 
 the face of the world ; nothing betokens that the recent 
 sufferings of the Catholic church will have any saving 
 power. From the tomb where it was laid for dead, we 
 see it bring back no scheme for the restoration of suffering, 
 longing humanity. 
 
 The Roman Church is yet what it was four hundred
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 367 
 
 years ago ; but within that period the world has become 
 quite another thing ; it has made great progress, and freed 
 itself from the meshes of the past, with the firm purpose 
 not to be again involved in them. If civilisation, then, is 
 about to assume a new form, as every thing forebodes, re- 
 ligion, which is at once the beginning and end of society, 
 the key-stone and the corner-stone, religion, must also re- 
 cast herself. Would it be the first time that Christianity 
 has modified her forms and rules, to adapt herself to the 
 instincts and the tendencies of the nations she has sought 
 to bless? 
 
 In this country, religion has wrought the elevation of the 
 lower classes. Puritanism has been the starting point of 
 the democratic movement. The Puritans came to Amer- 
 ica, not in quest of gold, nor to conquer provinces, but to 
 found a church on the principle of primitive equality. 
 They were as I have before said, new Jews ; they wished 
 to govern by the laws of Moses. In the beginning the 
 state was completely swallowed up by the church ; they 
 divided themselves into religious congregations, in which 
 all the heads of families were equal, conformably to the 
 Mosaic law, over which the elders and the saints presided, 
 and in. which all earthly distinctions were abolished or 
 contemned. One of the first objects of their care, under 
 the -influence of their religious views, was to establish 
 schools, in which all the children should be educated to- 
 gether and in the same manner. Although unequal in 
 respect to property, all adopted the same habits of life. 
 The physical exertions, to which all were obliged to 
 devote themselves in common, in order to defend 
 themselves from famine and the savages, strengthen- 
 ed their habits and feelings of equality. Now, New 
 England, which is inhabited exclusively by the sons of 
 the Puritans, and in which their traditions and their faith 

 
 368 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 are still kept unchanged, has ever been, and is yet, the 
 focus of American democracy. 
 
 Thus American democracy has been enabled to organise 
 and establish itself. All our efforts, on the contrary, to found 
 a democracy in France in 1793, would have been vain, 
 even had we not been unfitted for democratic habits, be- 
 cause we wished to build on irreligion, on the hatred of 
 religion. Manners and feelings must prepare and inspire 
 the means of social improvement ; the laws must express 
 and prescribe them. Politics and religion, then, must 
 join hands in this difficult task. Politics, as well as reli- 
 gion, must be transformed for the furtherance of civilisa- 
 tion, and the safety of the world. 
 
 I admire the results, which the political system of the 
 United States has produced in America. But it seems to 
 me impossible, that the institutions by which the condition 
 of the people has been so much bettered here, can be 
 naturalised amongst us. There must be harmony between 
 the political and religious schemes that are suited to 
 any one people. Protestantism is republican ; puritanism 
 is absolute self-government in religion, and begets it in 
 politics. The United Provinces were Protestant; the 
 United States are Protestant. Catholicism is essentially 
 monarchical ; in countries, which are Catholic, at least by 
 recollections, habits, and education, if not by faith, a regu- 
 lar democracy is impracticable. The anarchy of the for- 
 mer Spanish colonies fully proves to what bitter regrets 
 Catholic nations expose themselves, when they attempt to 
 apply to themselves the political institutions of Protestant 
 countries. 
 
 Under the influence of Protestantism and republicanism, 
 the social progress has been effected by the medium of the 
 spirit of individuality ; for protestantism, republicanism, 
 and individuality are all one. Individuals stand apart 
 from one another, or if they are associated together, they
 
 SOCIAL REFORM. 369 
 
 have formed only limited associations, which have no 
 common bond of union. The republic of the United 
 States is indefinitely subdivided into independent repub- 
 lics of various classes. The States are republics in the 
 general confederation ; the towns are republics within the 
 States ; a farm is a republic in a county. Banking, canal, 
 and railroad companies, are so many distinct republics. The 
 family is an inviolable republic in the state ; each indivi- 
 dual is a republic by himself in the family. The only 
 effective militia consists of volunteer companies, which 
 have no connexion with each other. The religious organ- 
 isation of the country resembles its civil and political 
 organisation. The different sects are independent of each 
 other, and most of them tend to split up into completely 
 detached fragments. 
 
 Our national genius, on the contrary, requires that in 
 France we should act chiefly under the influence of asso- 
 ciation and unity, which are characteristic traits of Catho- 
 licism and monarchy. France is a specimen of the com- 
 pletest political and administrative unity that there is in 
 the world. Our individual existence must be bound up 
 with others ; we love independence, but we do not feel 
 that we live unless we make a part of a whole. Solitude 
 overpowers us ; the personality of the Englishman or the 
 American can sustain itself alone ; ours must be linked with 
 that of others. For a people eminently social, like the 
 French, how is it possible that the spirit of association 
 should not be the best ? But it must retain the distinction 
 of ranks ; for with us, a republican association would 
 degenerate into anarchy. 
 
 If, then, I should attempt to define the conditions most 
 favourable to the improvement of society in France, I should 
 say that they require it to be undertaken under the influences 
 of religion ; that its accomplishment should be confided to 
 the constituted authorities, central and local, and particu- 
 47
 
 370 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 larly to royalty ; that it should be effected by means of 
 institutions bearing the double impress of unity and hier- 
 chical association, arid reposing immediately on the general 
 association, which is the state, or supported by powerful 
 intermediary associations, which should be themselves 
 attached to the state. The nearer we approach these con- 
 ditions, the more complete will be our success, the sooner 
 shall we have the happiness of seeing our beloved France, 
 prosperous within, recover the high station which she 
 ought to occupy in the world. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 
 
 ALBANY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1835. 
 
 IT has been already shown (Letter X.), that there are 
 in the United States two strongly marked types, the Yan- 
 kee and the Virginian, the mutual action and reaction of 
 which have hitherto been the life of the Union. A third is 
 rising in the West, which seems destined to become the 
 bond and umpire of the two others, if it is able to preserve 
 its own unity ; which will not, however, be easy, for the 
 West comprises slave -holding and non-slave-holding States. 
 For the present, this high office is filled by the Middle 
 States, or rather by New York, which is the most import- 
 ant State not only of this group, but of the whole Union. 
 To be a mediator between two types, it is necessary to 
 unite in one person the principal qualities of both ; the 
 State of New York, then, should combine the large views
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 371 
 
 of the South with the spirit of detail that marks the 
 North. To be, even imperfectly, the personification of the 
 principle of unity in the great American confederation, it 
 is indispensable that the claimant of that honour should 
 possess in a high degree the spirit of unity. To achieve 
 the work of centralisation or consolidation in America, even 
 partially, demands a high degree of the genius of centrali- 
 sation. For some time there has appeared in the adminis- 
 tration of the State of New York, a character of grandeur, 
 unity, and centralisation, that has procured it the title of 
 the Empire-State. Although it is the nearest neighbour 
 of the New England States, and actually borders upon 
 three of them, although a large number of its inhabitants 
 are of New England origin, it has succeeded in freeing 
 itself from the spirit of extreme division that is characteris- 
 tic of the Yankees, or rather in counterbalancing it by a 
 proportional development of the spirit of unity. 
 
 The Opposition, which is in the minority in the legisla- 
 ture in the State, and does not, therefore, feel in good hu- 
 mour, endeavours to create among the people a dislike to this 
 control of the central power. " You are led," it says, " by 
 the Albany Regency ; a half-dozen of the friends of Mr 
 Mr Van-Buren, taking their cue from Governor Marcy ; 
 make you their puppets." The Opposition exaggerates ; 
 but it is certain, that the organisation of the State, and the 
 forms of administration, which have been established of 
 late years under the influence of Mr Van Buren, and which 
 form a precedent for the future, bear the impress of a cen- 
 tralism, at which the friends of unlimited individual inde- 
 pendence have a right to take alarm, but which wise men 
 must applaud ; for it is by means of it that the State of 
 New York is become superiour to the others, and it is by it 
 alone that it can maintain its superiority. This combination 
 of expansive force, which prevails every where else in the 
 American confederacy, with a sufficient cohesive power, has
 
 372 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 given to the constitution of New York an elasticity, which, 
 for communities as well as for individuals, is the condition 
 of a long and prosperous existence. 
 
 The organisation of the public schools and of public 
 instruction in general is centralised. Most of the States 
 have a school-fund, the income of which in New England 
 is distributed among the towns, who dispose of it accord- 
 ing to their own good pleasure, without the State having 
 the right to exercise any real control over it, or imposing 
 any conditions in regard to it. New York proceeds more 
 imperially ; it obliges the different towns to raise a sum 
 equal to that to which they are entitled from the State, 
 under penalty of not receiving their share of the State 
 fund. This method is preferable to that followed in Con- 
 necticut, which distributes annually among the towns 
 about the same sum as New York, but exacts no account 
 of the manner in which it has been employed, and cannot 
 even be sure that it has been actually devoted to the pur- 
 pose of instruction. 
 
 In 1834, the public schools in New York were attended 
 by 541,400 pupils ; now the number of children between 
 five and sixteen years of age in the districts from which 
 returns were received, comprising very nearly the whole 
 State, was only 543,085. The whole expenditure for 
 schools was 1,310,000 dollars, of which 750,000 dollars 
 was for pay of teachers. The amount expended in France 
 for the same object is only three times as great as that 
 expended by New York, which has one sixteenth of the 
 population of France. The number of children in our 
 schools is 2,450,000, or one thirteenth of the population, 
 which is only one third of the proportion in New York. 
 
 All the common schools in New York are under the 
 supervision and control of a board of commissioners, mostly 
 composed of several of the chief officers of the government, 
 and of which the Secretary of State is the most active
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 373 
 
 member. The commissioners make provision for the in- 
 struction of teachers, require an account of the condi- 
 tion of the school, and select the text books. Virginia, 
 Ohio, and some other States have adopted a similar system 
 in this respect ; but New York has this peculiarity, that it 
 has also a board, styled the board of Regents of the Uni- 
 versity, who are appointed by the legislature, and have the 
 control of the higher schools called academies. There are 
 seven colleges in the State, one of which is styled the Uni- 
 versity of New York, and corresponds, very remotely it is 
 true, to the English and German Universities. 
 
 The control of the government over the academies is at 
 present very limited ; it is little more than an annual visit 
 by one or more of the Regents of the University, but it can 
 easily be extended, whenever the State shall think proper, 
 by means of the system of pecuniary aid ; in 1834, the 
 sum distributed among these seminaries was 12,500 dollars. 
 The number of pupils in the Academies was a little more 
 than 5,000, or two and a half pupils out of each thousand 
 souls. In France, there were 80,000 pupils in the colle- 
 ges, which is the same ratio to the whole population. 
 It would appear from this comparison, that in the United 
 States, where the advantages of elementary instruction are 
 universally realised, the desire for a higher degree of in- 
 struction is less general than with us, for the number of 
 families that can afford to pay is proportion ably much 
 greater in the United States than in France. Thus in 
 regard to a higher education, we recover, in some measure, 
 the superiority, which the Americans, at least in New 
 York, have over us in respect to elementary education. 
 
 The same spirit of unity and centralisation has dictated 
 a general regulation of a singular character in respect to 
 the banks, which may prove to be of great value in prac- 
 tice, and to which there is nothing similar, either in the 
 other States, or in any other country. The Safety-Fund-
 
 374 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 Act establishes a bank fund appropriated to making good 
 any losses incurred by the failure of any of the banks. 
 Each bank is required to pay annually to the State treasu- 
 rer, a sum equal to one half of one per cent, on its capi- 
 tal, until it shall have so paid in the sum of three per 
 cent, on the capital stock. Whenever the bank fund is 
 reduced by paying the debts of an insolvent bank, it must 
 be restored to the proper amount by the same process. 
 The banks, together with the fund, are under the supervi- 
 sion of three Commissioners, one of whom is appointed 
 by the Governor, and the two others by the banks. The 
 Commissioners visit each bank at least once in four months, 
 examine into its operations, and satisfy themselves that it 
 has conformed itself to the provisions of its charter. 
 They are beside required to make a particular examina- 
 tion of any bank on the demand of three other banks, and 
 in case of detecting any violation of the charter, to apply 
 to the court of chancery for an injunction against it. 
 
 This law contains several sections designed to aid the 
 Commissioners in the execution of their duties, and to 
 prevent their being imposed on by the banks ; it gives 
 them the right to inspect the books, and to examine the 
 officers of the bank under oath. The salary of the Com- 
 missioners is 2,000 dollars, which is paid out of the bank 
 fund. Any bank director or officer who shall make false 
 returns to the legislature, or false entries in the books, or 
 exhibit false papers with intent to deceive the Commis- 
 sioners, is subject to imprisonment for not less than three 
 nor more than ten years. Every bank subject to this act 
 may receive legal interest on loan and discounts ; but on 
 notes which shall be mature in sixtythree days from the 
 time of discount, it shall receive only six per cent, per 
 annum. It is further provided that the issues or circula- 
 tion of any bank shall not exceed twice its capital stock T 
 and that its loans and discounts shall never exceed twice
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 375 
 
 and a half that amount ; but this provision has not hither- 
 to been rigidly observed. 
 
 The number of banks in the State is eightyseven. of 
 which only seventyseven are subject to the provisions of 
 the Safety-Fund-Act, the others having been established 
 before the date of the act. But as all will be obliged to 
 renew their charters within ten years, with the exception 
 of the Manhattan bank alone, which has a perpetual char- 
 ter, they will all, with one exception, be brought under 
 the act. The aggregate of the bank capital in the State 
 is 31,280,000 dollars ; the bank fund amounts to above 
 538,000 dollars. The annual amount of the loans and 
 discounts of the banks is estimated at about 300 millions, 
 exclusive of the operations of the three branches of the 
 United States Bank ; that of the banks of the city of 
 New York alone, is about 180 million, or twice as much 
 as that of the Bank of France. 
 
 Nothing, however, has contributed so much to give 
 New York its imperial reputation, as the energy it has 
 displayed in canalling its territory. All the resources of 
 the State were devoted to this object ; all the energies of 
 its citizens were bent for eight years on the accomplish- 
 ment of this great work. In spite of the worst predictions 
 and earnest remonstrances of some of the most respected 
 men in the Union, the confidence of this young State 
 never faltered for a moment. Complete success attended 
 its efforts ; the great canal, begun in 1817, was finished 
 in 1825. The State has since executed a great number 
 of canals, at an expense of above twelve millions, the 
 greater part of which has been raised by loan. Several 
 others are still in progress. 
 
 The Erie canal, the most important of these works, is 
 simple in construction, not very deep nor very wide. 
 But if it is not peculiarly interesting as an object of art. 
 it is an object of admiration considered as a great com-
 
 376 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 mercial artery. From our canals, which are navigated by 
 heavy and clumsy boats slowly and painfully dragged 
 forward by a man, you can get no idea of this great chan- 
 nel, with its fleet of light, elegant, covered barks gliding 
 along at a rapid rate, and drawn by a powerful team. 
 Every minute boats are passing each other, and the boat- 
 man's horn warns the lock-master to be in readiness. 
 Each moment the landscape varies ; now you pass a 
 river by an aqueduct, now you traverse large new towns, 
 fine as capitals, with all their houses having pillared por- 
 ticos and looking externally like little palaces ; it is an 
 admirable spectacle of life and variety. The amount of 
 property annually transported on the Erie Canal is 430,000 
 tons, on the Champlain canal, 307,000 tons, at very mode- 
 rate rates of toll. The annual amount of tolls is 1,500,000 
 dollars ; that on the French canals and rivers is only 
 900,000 dollars. 
 
 In 1817, when it began the great canal, the State of 
 New York contained 1,250,000 inhabitants, scattered over 
 a surface about one fourth as large as France. Whilst in 
 Europe, grave publicists were discussing the question, 
 whether a State should undertake the execution of public 
 works, and the most powerful governments were listening 
 scrupulously to the debate, in order to determine whether 
 they had the right to enrich their subjects by productive 
 enterprises, the same governments who never doubted 
 their right to waste millions of men and treasure in devas- 
 tating Europe, the modest authorities of this miniature 
 empire solved the question, without dreaming that it could 
 embarrass great potentates in other quarters. The State 
 of New York undertook the execution of public works, and 
 has found its advantage in them ; after having executed 
 them, it has managed them itself on its own account, and 
 found even greater advantages in this. The income from 
 the canals, with the aid of some slight additions, has been.
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 377 
 
 sufficient to sink nearly half the debt contracted in their con- 
 struction. Thus the brilliant success of the Erie canal, be- 
 came the signal for the greatest undertakings of a similar 
 character by the other States. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Mary- 
 land, Virginia, and Indiana have followed the example of 
 New York, and have undertaken to open routes of commu- 
 nication of every kind, through their territories, at their 
 own expense, even at the risk of incurring the reproaches of 
 the timid economists of Europe. 
 
 New York has carried her interference in public works 
 still further ; in all the charters for railroad companies, the 
 State reserves to itself the right of acquiring the property 
 of the railroad, after the expiration of ten years, and on 
 certain conditions named in the act of incorporation, which 
 are truly liberal on the part of the State ; they stipulate 
 the re-payment of the first cost and the sums expended in 
 repairs, and the supply of any deficiency in the dividends 
 below ten per cent.* 
 
 Thus the State of New York, in its imperial humour, 
 has laid hands on public instruction, banks, and the 
 means of communication, with the purpose of centralising 
 them ; the design is already effected in respect to public 
 works ;. it is not yet fully accomplished in jegard to the 
 schools and the banks ; but its fulfilment approaches grad- 
 ually and surely. As I have already said, the spirit of 
 centralisation has penetrated more deeply into the admin- 
 istration of the State, than into the acts of the legislature ; 
 a guarantee, that the laws of unity Avill not remain paper 
 rules. 
 
 The lessons of New York have turned to the profit of 
 
 * Several States have reserved to themselves a similar right, but generally 
 on less liberal conditions. Massachusetts, however, has adopted the same, 
 extending the term of possession by the company to twenty years. New Jer- 
 sey has stipulated that it shall have the right of acquiring the property of 
 several works, at a price not exceeding their first cost. 
 
 48
 
 378 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 its neighbours ; like it, they also begin the work of cen- 
 tralisation, in embracing schools, banks, and public works 
 within the action of the State. They see, by its example^ 
 that the spirit of individual enterprise does not suffer, when 
 the government subjects to its control and its authority 
 these three great springs of national prosperity, and even 
 when it sets them in action on its own account ; for no- 
 where is the spirit of enterprise more vigourous and clear- 
 sighted than in New York. In spite of the Safety-Fund- 
 Act, there are nowhere more numerous applications for the 
 incorporation of banking companies. Notwithstanding the 
 school laws, nowhere do institutions of education increase 
 more rapidly. Nowhere are there more railroads in pro- 
 gress. The State contains 80 miles of canal and 100 of 
 railroads, constructed by companies ; from 150 to 200 
 miles of railroad are now in process of construction, and 
 a company has been organised for constructing a railroad 
 from the Hudson to Lake Erie through the southern coun- 
 ties, a distance of 350 miles. 
 
 It would be too much to suppose that a country like 
 France, where so much value is set on the principles of 
 unity and centralisation, would be less courageous than 
 these little republics, born under the influence of the indi- 
 vidual principle, and that we should any longer delay to 
 take an imperial course in regard to institutions of credit, 
 public works, and industrial education. The object to be 
 accomplished is not merely to increase the wealth of the 
 country. But there are other and more elevated motives 
 to induce modern governments to take part in such institu- 
 tions, and thus to extend their control over the interests 
 and operations of industry. 
 
 The progress of civilisation, considered with reference 
 to the individual, consists in this ; that each becomes more 
 and more suited to bear the weight of his individuality. 
 Social order, being thus supplied with stronger individual
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 379 
 
 guarantees, seems to require less and less of legal and pub- 
 lic ones ; but in this matter, there is an important distinc- 
 tion to be kept in view. Civilisation gradually strips man 
 of the grosser habits and the brutal propensities of savage 
 life. There are many prohibitions and commands in the 
 Deuteronomy, which in our day would be perfectly super- 
 fluous. Mankind hardly has further need to be taught : 
 Thou shalt not kill. The lictor and the headsman are 
 losing their social importance ; the constable, the sheriff, 
 and the gaoler are, it is to be hoped, on the eve of taking 
 their places every where. Public order has begun, and 
 will continue more and more, to dispense with the use of 
 the sword ; and thus individual reason substitutes its vol- 
 untary sanction for the imperative sanction of political 
 power and the force of arms. 
 
 The human understanding is expanded and enlightened 
 by cultivation ; the heart is elevated and purified ; yet the 
 elementary passions are the same. They are combined 
 under different forms, and are turned to different objects ; 
 but if they are moderated, it is only in outward appearan- 
 ces ; if they are polished, it is only on the surface ; within 
 all is as rough and fierce as ever.* In politics, particu- 
 larly, jealousy and ambition exist in the same degree 
 amongst us as they did amongst the Greeks and Romans ; 
 they no longer wield the dagger or administer the poison, 
 they do not even employ an assassin or a Locusta ; but 
 they are neither less unjust, nor less insatiable, nor less 
 bitter than in ancient times ; they do not stab the body, 
 but they wound the honour ; slander takes the place of the 
 stiletto, and serves them as well as the juices of venomous 
 plants ; civilisation furnishes them a thousand new means 
 
 *Mde. de Stael exclaims; "Strange destiny of mankind, condemned 
 ever to retrace the same circle by the passions, whilst it is ever advancing 
 ;n the career of thought .'"
 
 380 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 of assuaging their thirst. I do not believe that Sylla and 
 Marius, Caesar and Pompey, hated each other more cordi- 
 ally than General Jackson, President of the United States, 
 and Mr Biddle, president of the United States' Bank. If 
 one were to search out the types of Cain and Abel among 
 modern statesmen, the list would be of frightful length. 
 
 To that force of dissolution, which increases instead of 
 diminishing, in proportion to the increasing number of in- 
 dividuals admitted to a share of political influence, it is 
 necessary to oppose cohesive elements of equal activity and 
 intensity. It is for this reason that in the future, as well as 
 in the pasl, the existence of society involves that of religion. 
 Even did not religion touch the tenderest cords and stir the 
 liveliest sensibilities of the human heart ; if it did not offer 
 to the imagination a vast field in which to wander in safety ; 
 even if it were not indispensable to peace of conscience 
 and to domestic tranquillity, it would be impossible to get 
 along without it, for it has also a political necessity. It has 
 been rightly said, that if there were no God, it would be 
 necessary to feign one. 
 
 A single institution, however, would not suffice to regu- 
 late and govern the passions at all times and in all places, 
 unless it were to follow men in all their movements, control 
 them in all their acts, bind them hands and feet, or, in a. 
 word, unless it were despotic, after the image of the old 
 theocracies. It is not, then, to be hoped, that, in our free 
 countries, religion alone can counterbalance human pas- 
 sions and confine them within the limits, in which they 
 subserve the progress of society ; or at least, if it can 
 do this in one of the social hemispheres, the family, it 
 will always be insufficient in the other, the state. 
 For this reason, the Middle Ages established a salutary 
 principle, when they separated the temporal power from 
 the spiritual authority, and gave strength and indepen- 
 dence to each. From that time, all efforts to confound
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 381 
 
 these two powers, or, which amounts to the same thing, 
 to dispense with one of them, have been completely un- 
 successful ; they have generally resulted in establishing a 
 tyranny.* 
 
 A temporal authority, armed with ample prerogatives, 
 is, then, indispensable at the present day, even in behalf of 
 liberty itself. On the other hand it is impossible to deny 
 that the tendency of civilisation is to strip the throne of its 
 ancient attributes, either in whole or in part. On this 
 head, our age has taken a decided stand. The resistance 
 of kings to the efforts of those who have assailed the 
 throne, has served to exasperate the latter to such a pitch, 
 that a party, that of the republicans, has been formed, 
 the sole object of which is the complete and radical aboli- 
 tion of monarchy, and the singular doctrine of the inutility 
 and even the danger of all power has found numerous and 
 warm adherents. 
 
 The people are right to desire the kings to lay down or 
 to curtail their old prerogatives ; the governments, that are 
 the heirs of conquest, ought to abdicate whatever there is 
 of violence and brutality in their authority. It would be 
 premature to assert that universal peace is about to dawn 
 
 * I have already said, that when the Puritans landed in New England 
 they wished above all things to found a religious society. They organised 
 themselves by the laws of Moses. Political society did not exist in fact, 
 although there was a nominal governor to represent the temporal authority, 
 or was swallowed up in the church ; the town was merged in the congrega- 
 tion. Thus in a short time, their government came to resemble that of the Je- 
 suits in Paraguay, with only this difference, that each one here had his share 
 in the tyranny. The Blue Laws of Connecticut are a monument of this state 
 of things, in which the common acts of life were subjected to the most vexa- 
 tious restrictions. The New Englanders were soon obliged to renounce their 
 Mosaic system of government, and without, perfectly separating politics 
 from religion, they gave to each of the two powers an independent existence. 
 They did not establish the political power firmly beyond the town ; but the 
 municipal constitution was solid and firm, sometimes even to excess, for tho 
 very reason that it started from the religious organisation.
 
 382 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 on the earth ; it is not so to affirm that war is henceforth 
 to be a secondary and accidental matter in the history of 
 nations. Industry, that is to say, the art of creating wealth, 
 multiplying the means of happiness, and adorning the 
 globe, the residence of the human family, will henceforth 
 take precedence of the art of slaying and wasting. The 
 sword is ceasing to be the highest emblem of power. But 
 kings are right, in their turn, to prevent their power being 
 reduced to an empty shadow. Independently of all indi- 
 vidual ambition, from the lofty height on which they are 
 placed, they see that the preservation of the order of soci- 
 ety demands the presence of a power worthy of the name. 
 And what, proves the justness of their view is the fact, that 
 men of all parties who have taken part in the government 
 during our revolutionary crisis, have all agreed in this 
 point whatever may have been their former opinions ; it is 
 the only point on which they have been unanimous. 
 
 The truth is, that while we are taking from govern- 
 ments, we must also be giving to them. War is no longer 
 the principal object of the activity of nations ; the employ- 
 ment of brute force becomes less and less necessary to the 
 preservation of society ; let us then gradually reduce, with 
 a firm hand, those prerogatives of power which give it an 
 exclusively warlike character, and which leave our lives 
 and liberties at the discretion of its armed creatures ! Since 
 industry is occupying a wider and wider space in the ex- 
 istence of the individual and the nation, let us cause it to 
 enter more and more completely into the sphere of govern- 
 ment, by including in the attributes of government its 
 three springs, banks, means of communication, and schools ; 
 on condition, be it understood, that government shall use 
 the new powers with which it shall be thus invested, for 
 the general good. 
 
 The banks, means of communication, and schools are 
 instruments of governments, which it would be unwise to
 
 THE EMPIRE STATE. 38S 
 
 leave wholly out of the influence of the public authority, 
 but which there could be no harm in partially incorpora- 
 ting with it, in such a manner as not to stifle the spirit of 
 individual enterprise. The public authority would then 
 exercise its functions conformably with the tendencies of 
 the ^national character, and would preside over the most 
 important events of the national life ; it would then really 
 deserve the name of government ; it would possess a new 
 means of coercion and restraint, which is the only one 
 compatible with the progress of the spirit of liberty. In- 
 stead of having a hold on the body and blood of the sub- 
 ject, it would have a hold on his industry and his purse. 
 A new degree of inviolability would thus be secured to 
 the individual, without the social order losing its needful 
 guarantees. By this means in fine the political advent of 
 industry would be accomplished. Instead of being a cause 
 of agitation and change, once sure of its rank and secure in 
 its seat, industry would act an important conservative part 
 in society. 
 
 Every thing is now ripe for this political transfiguration. 
 Forty years ago, the people looked for their own elevation 
 in the overthrow of the old order of things. Hatred has 
 now ceased to be their chief counsellor ; the thirst for de- 
 struction is cooled ; they think less of shaking off the 
 yoke of tyrants, more of freeing themselves from the bur- 
 dens of ignorance and poverty. The road to liberty which 
 would now be preferred in Europe, passes through com- 
 petency, education, and industry. Those who were once 
 the temporal and spiritual heads of the people would soon 
 regain their lost rank, if calming the fears with which 
 the curses uttered against the last of kings and the 
 last of priests had filled them, they knew how to put 
 themselves at the head of such a march ; for the people 
 could follow them with joy. By what fatality is it, that 
 they still doubt and hesitate ?
 
 384 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 I know not if I deceive myself, but it seems to me, 
 that, in this matter, the example must come from France. 
 Not that she has' greater sums in her treasury ; not that 
 she counts more soldiers under her flag, more ships in her 
 ports, more cannon in her fortresses, but that she has the 
 most sagacious intellect, and the noblest heart ; that the 
 world is accustomed to receive the watchword from her. 
 London, with its thousands of ships, might be burnt to 
 the ground, and the rest of the world would be no other- 
 wise affected by the event, than as by a lamentable dis- 
 aster which has befallen a foreigner ; the recoil of a mere 
 riot in Paris is felt to the ends of the world. The revo- 
 lution of July gave birth to Parliamentary Reform ; the 
 Reform bill would never have brought forth July. It is 
 because France is the heart of the world ; the affairs of 
 France interest all ; the cause which she espouses is 
 not that of a -selfish ambition, but that of civilisation. 
 When France speaks, she is listened to, because she 
 speaks not her own feelings merely, but those of the 
 human race. When she acts, her example is followed, 
 because she does what all desire to do. 
 
 France was the first on the European continent to 
 enthrone liberty ; it is for her to re-seat the principle of 
 authority, for the fulness of its time is come. She pro- 
 tected the people when protection was necessary ; it is 
 now for her to protect kings ; not by the edge of the 
 sword, although she must not break her own, which has 
 done so much for civilisation (for that would be sacrilege), 
 but by the wisdom and the moral superiority of her new 
 principles of government, by the creative power of the 
 new attributes with which she invests authority.
 
 SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 385 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 BALTIMORE, SEPTEMBER 25, 1835. 
 
 Two years ago Mr Clay began a speech in the Senate, 
 with these words, which have become celebrated on this 
 side of the Atlantic : " We are in the midst of a revolu- 
 tion." It was at the time, when by an act of authority be- 
 fore unheard of in American history, General Jackson had 
 just settled the bank question, which his friends in Con- 
 gress and even his own ministers had refused to decide. 
 These words have often been repeated by others. More 
 recently, since the scenes of murder, outrage, and destruc- 
 tion which have been exhibited through the United States, 
 both in the slave-holding States, and in those in which 
 slavery does not exist, in the country as well as in the 
 towns, at Boston, the republican city par excellence, as 
 as well as at Baltimore, for which the bloody excesses of 
 which it was the theatre in 1812, have gained the title 
 of the. Mob Town, good citizens have repeated with 
 grief; " We are in the midst of a revolution." 
 
 It must be granted to the honour of the English race, 
 that it is, more deeply than any other, imbued with a feel- 
 ing of reverence for the law. Until lately, the Americans 
 have shown themselves in this respect l as well as in others, 
 to be double-distilled Englishmen. There are nations, 
 who conceive of law under a living form, that is, only so 
 far as it is personified in a man. They know how to obey 
 a leader, but they cannot learn to respect a dead letter. 
 With them the glory and prosperity of a State depend 
 little on the character of the laws, but much on that of 
 the men who are their organs. In their view, the empire 
 49
 
 386 LETTER XXX. 
 
 rises and falls by turns, according as the sovereign, what- 
 ever may be his title, is a superior man or an ordinary per- 
 sonage. Such appears to be. in general, the character of 
 the Asiatics. The Englishman is formed in a different 
 mould ; he willingly bows to the authority of a text ; 
 but he stoops to man with reluctance. He does not need 
 that obedience to law should be inculcated by the voice of 
 man, he obeys it without an effort and by instinct. In a word 
 the Englishman has in himself the principle of self-gov- 
 ernment. This fact accounts for the success of his politi- 
 cal system in the United States, where the native charac- 
 ter of the English race is fairly developed. 
 
 Unfortunately the reverence for the laws seems to be 
 wearing out with the Americans. This people, eminently 
 practical in every thing else, have allowed themselves to 
 be pushed into the excess of theory in politics, arid have 
 here taken up the quand meme logic ; they have shrunk 
 from none of the consequences of popular sovereignty, at 
 least while those consequences were flattering to their 
 pride ; as if there were a single principle in the world, 
 not excepting Christian charity itself, which could be car- 
 ried to its extreme logical consequences without resulting 
 in absolute absurdity. They have, therefore, been driven 
 in the United States to deny that there is any principle 
 true in and by itself, and to assert that the will of the people 
 is, always and necessarily, justice ; the infallibility of the 
 people in every thing and at all times, has, in fact, become 
 the received doctrine, and thus a door has been opened to 
 the tyranny of a turbulent minority, which always calls 
 itself the people.* 
 
 The appearance of this miscalled popular justice, admin- 
 
 * It has been observed, that the disorders are always committed by 
 a handful of men followed by a train of a mischievous boys. It is rare that 
 more than one hundred persons take part in the acts of violence, and often 
 not half that number is engaged in them.
 
 SYMPTOMS OP REVOLUTION. 387 
 
 istered by the hands of a few desperate or furious men, who 
 call themselves the successors of the Boston Tea Party of 
 1773, is a great calamity in the bosom of a country, where 
 there is no other guarantee of the public peace than a 
 reverence of the laws, and where the legislator, taking for 
 granted the prevalence of order, has made no provisions 
 against disorder. This popular justice has the greater 
 condemnation of being for the most part grossly unjust. 
 Most of the men who have been atrociously hanged, or 
 flogged, or tortured in twenty other ways in the South,* 
 as abolitionists, that is as guilty of instigating the slaves 
 to rise against their masters, were, according to all appear- 
 ances, merely guilty of having expressed their abhorrence 
 of slavery with too little caution. It is even doubtful 
 whether the pretended plots, for being engaged in which 
 whites and blacks have been summarily executed, had a 
 real existence. At least no proof of their reality has yet 
 been brought forward, which would be admitted by a 
 court of justice. During the outrages last month at Balti- 
 more, which were continued for four days, this self-styled 
 justice was most stupidly unjust. The mob gave out that 
 it wished to punish those knaves who had shamefully 
 abused the credulity of the poor in the affair of the Bank 
 of Maryland. It is a matter of public notoriety, that the 
 bankruptcy of the bank was fraudulent ; that just before 
 it stopped payment, it had offered a high rate of interest 
 on deposits of any amount, in order to attract to its coun- 
 ter the savings of the labouring classes ; but it was also a 
 matter of notoriety, that the criminal acts of the bank were 
 wholly the work of one Evan Poultney, who alone was, 
 
 * A Virginia newspaper relates that an abolitionist, having fallen into the 
 hands of a Commitee of Vigilance, was stript naked, and stretched at his 
 length on his face, when a cat was several times dragged across his bare back 
 by the ruffians. A New York Journal repeats the statement with no other 
 comment than some witticism.
 
 388 LETTER XXX. 
 
 in fact, the bank. Instead of going to take vengeance for 
 the ruin of the artisan, the widow, and the orphan, on the 
 author of it, the mob went to call to account the bank- 
 ruptcy commissioners, appointed by the court. It was not 
 till the third day that it bethought itself to make a visit to 
 Poultney, who, without being at all disconcerted, began to 
 cry out that he was a sinner, that he had been guilty of 
 wronging his neighbour. He beat his breast in sign of re- 
 pentance, and in a puritanical slang accused himself more 
 loudly than the rioters had done. Blinded, like Orgon, by 
 so much sanctity, they excused themselves to Tartufe like 
 him, carefully swept the hall and the marble door-steps 
 which they had soiled, and hastened to sack the house of 
 the mayor, because a small detachment of militia, sponta- 
 neously assembled, had fired upon them in self-defence, 
 after having stood patient for some time under a shower 
 of stones. 
 
 These disorders are alarming from their general preva- 
 lence, and from their frequent repetitions, and they are the 
 more so, the less their importance is realised. They meet 
 with few voices to condemn them, but they find many to 
 excuse them. One of the defects of democracy is that it is 
 forgetful of the past, and careless of the future. A riot, 
 which in France would put a stop to business, prevents no 
 one here from going to the Exchange, speculating, turning 
 over the dollars, and making money. On meeting in the 
 morning, each one asks and tells the news ; here a negro 
 has been hanged, there a white man has been flogged ; at 
 Philadelphia, ten houses have been demolished ; at Buffalo, 
 at Utica, some people of colour have been scourged. Then 
 they go on to the price of cotton and coffee, the arrivals of 
 flour, lumber, and tobacco, and become absorbed in calcu- 
 lations the rest of the day. I am surprised to see how 
 dead the word equality falls, when a good citizen pronoun- 
 ces it ; the reign of law seems to be at an end ; we have
 
 SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 389 
 
 fallen under that of expediency. Farewell to justice, fare- 
 well to the great principles of 1776 and 1789 ! All hail to 
 the interest of t the moment, interpreted by nobody knows 
 who, for the success of some petty intrigue of politics or 
 business ! 
 
 Five men, five white men, have been hanged at Vicks- 
 burg in Mississippi, without even the form of a trial ; they 
 were gamblers, you are told, the scourge of the country. 
 The most respectable citizens of Vicksburg assisted in 
 their execution. But the law which guaranties to all your 
 fellow-citizens the trial by a jury of peers ; but that old 
 Saxon justice of which you boast ! What is become of 
 them ? No tribunal would have been able to rid us of the 
 rogues ; morality and religion condemn them, and their 
 decree, for want of others, we have executed ; it was 
 necessary. Expediency ! In Virginia, travellers from the 
 Northern States, on the slightest pretences, for some tavern 
 gossip, or some conversation in the coach, have been drag- 
 ged before the self-styled Committees of Vigilance, beaten, 
 tarred, and feathered. Others, whose crime consisted in 
 inadvertently having in their pocket, some papers which 
 the slave-holder has been pleased to pronounce abolition 
 writings, have been seized by these fanatics, and hanged as 
 emissaries of insurrection. What is become of that article 
 of the constitution, which secures to the citizens of each 
 State the protection of the laws in every other State ? If 
 we were to insist on these points, we should endanger our 
 union with the South. Expediency ! Merchants of New 
 York ! The planters of one of the parishes of Louisiana have 
 set a price on the head of one of your number, because, as 
 they say, he is an abolitionist, an amalgamator. Will not 
 your national sensibility, so lively in regard to France, be 
 touched by this act of audacity ? Our commerce with the 
 South constitutes half the prosperity of New York. Ex- 
 pediency ! Men of New England ! Citizens of the cradle
 
 390 LETTER XXX. 
 
 of American liberty ! Sons of the pilgrims, self-exiled first 
 to Holland, and then to the sandy shores of Massachusetts, 
 rather than bow their opinions to the will ojf the Stuarts ! 
 You, so proud of your liberties, how can you abandon the 
 dearest of all, the liberty of the press, to the hands of a 
 postmaster ? Always the same reply : Expediency I 
 
 It would seem as if political principles no longer existed 
 in the United States but at the pleasure of the pas- 
 sions, and the laws had no force when they jarred with in- 
 terest. When a State feels itself injured by a tariff, it 
 declares the law null and void, amis its militia, buys pow- 
 der and throws down the glove to Congress. When 
 another State, as Ohio, is dissatisfied with the boundary 
 line assigned to it, it declares war against Michigan, its 
 neighbour, in order to extend its frontiers by force. When 
 the fanatics of Massachusetts, in their savage intolerance, 
 feel offended by the presence of a Catholic convent, in 
 which the sisters devote themselves to the work of edu- 
 cating young girls without distinction of sect, they plun- 
 der it and set it on fire, and the sacred edifice is burnt, in 
 sight of a city with 70,000 inhabitants, without a drop of 
 - water being thrown upon the flames, and without its being 
 possible to find a jury that would convict the authors of 
 the cowardly outrage. When a Governor of Georgia* 
 comes into collision with an upright magistrate, who inter- 
 poses his authority between the rapacity of the whites and 
 the poor Indian whom they are impatient to rob, he de- 
 nounces the just judge to the legislature, and urges the 
 passing of a law that will make him a State criminal. 
 And, I repeat it, the worst and most fatal symptom of the 
 times is, that the perpetration of these outrages, however 
 frequent they become, excites no sensation. The destruc- 
 tion of the churches and school-houses of the blacks in 
 
 * Gov. Lumpkin.
 
 ..SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 39 1 
 
 New York was looked upon as a show, and the mer- 
 chants of the city as they passed, paused to take a 
 moment's relaxation from the sight ; the fall of the build- 
 ings was greeted with loud cheers. In Baltimore, a nu- 
 merous crowd applauded the work of demolition without 
 inquiring whose house was pulled down, and the women, 
 in the excitement of the moment, waved their handker- 
 chiefs in the air. 
 
 Another symptom still more alarming ! Civil courage, 
 the virtue of the Hampdens, the glory of the English race, 
 which shone with so pure a lustre in the United States 
 whilst the authors of their independence survived, seems 
 to be for a time extinct ; I say for a time, for there is a 
 stock of energy in the American character, which cannot 
 fail some time or another to revive and put forth its 
 strength anew. The press, which with a few honourable 
 exceptions, does not possess and does not merit, in the 
 United States, the consideration which it enjoys in 
 France ; the press, which is here so outrageously violent 
 and brutal in its treatment of members of Congress belong- 
 ing to the opposite party, is, on the other hand, more cau- 
 tious and reserved in regard to the multitude. The 
 American press is free in so far as it gives no bonds and 
 pays no stamp duty, but it is dependent on a capricious, 
 despotic, and not very enlightened public opinion, which 
 requires it to flatter the passion of the hour, and does not 
 look to it for lessons of morality. The public opinion of 
 the democracy is a master who is easily offended, and who 
 quickly shows his displeasure. The American journalist 
 is well aware that for the slightest display of boldness he 
 will be deserted ; and since the late events, this is not his 
 only fear, for he knows that if his enemies should choose 
 to brand him as an abolitionist, for example, it would be 
 easy to raise a mob of vagabonds, who would pillage and 
 pull down his house, tar and feather his person, and drive
 
 392 LETTER XXX. 
 
 him from home without any interference by the public 
 authorities.* He is therefore exceedingly circumspect. 
 In a word, the reign of terrour is begun in the United 
 States. Men of courage and devotion to the cause of law 
 have no rallying point in the press ; and even when the 
 public authority would be disposed to support them, it 
 proves insufficient, either through fear, or concern for party 
 interests, or want of physical force. To the small number 
 of good citizens in whom the state of the country excites 
 the liveliest alarm, there appears to be no resource left, but 
 that of organising themselves in patriotic societies, forming 
 themselves into military companies, of creating, in fine, a 
 national guard, under the form which the laws and nation- 
 al customs would sanction. They feel that this step is 
 necessary, but they hesitate, because they fear to kindle a 
 civil war. The Baltimoreans, however, seem determined 
 to make the trial.f It has also been proposed to make the 
 
 * An editor of a newspaper was lately driven from Boston by a mob, on 
 account of his abolition principles, and not long since another was subjected 
 to the same ostracism in New Orleans for having offended a militia company 
 by his remarks. 
 
 i The question of an armed police has for some time attracted the atten- 
 tion of enlightened individuals in the United States; the constable's staff 
 and the posse comitatus of the sheriff are no longer sufficient to maintain 
 order and keep the peace. Independently of political difficulties, however, 
 economical considerations stand in the way of the project. Virginia, for 
 example, has nearly two-fifths of the superficial area of France. An armed 
 police of one thousand men, which would be inconsiderable for that 
 extent of country, would cost her about 800,000 dollars a year, a sum, say 
 the calculators, which would more than pay the interest of a loan that would 
 enable us to construct a canal or a railroad from Richmond to the Ohio. So 
 the canal is made, and the armed police put off for another day. Mean- 
 while if some travellers from the North are hanged or flogged as abolitionists 
 by the slaveholders, in a moment of excitement, the affair is regretted at 
 first, but it is thought to be more important to have a canal or railroad which 
 shall make Richmond the rival of New York, than to save two or three 
 fanatics from the lash or the halter. This system is .deplorable. But I 
 know not that we have a right to denounce it, for we must confess, that 
 something analogous prevaili amongst us. We demand money without
 
 SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 393 
 
 towns responsible by law for the damages committed 
 within their limits. Such a law, if it did not have the 
 effect wholly to prevent the disorders, for the taxes here are 
 mostly paid by the rich, would at least have the merit of 
 repairing the losses suffered by means of them. 
 
 The present generation in the United States, brought up 
 in devotion to business, living in an atmosphere of interest, 
 if it is superiour to the last generation in commercial intelli- 
 gence and industrial enterprise, is inferiour to it in civil 
 courage and love of the public good. Deplorable fact ! 
 When Baltimore was not long since given up to the genius 
 of destruction four \vhole days, when the protection of 
 the city had been vainly transferred from the mayor to the 
 sheriff, and from the sheriff to the commanding officer of 
 the militia, when the prisons had been forced, and the 
 spirit of order began at last to revive, not a man was found 
 in this city of 100,000 souls to put himself at the head of 
 the movement. When the most respectable citizens, and 
 those most deeply interested in the restoration of the pub- 
 lic tranquillity held a meeting in the Exchange, the moun- 
 tain in labour brought forth only a long series of whereases 
 on the advantage of public order, and a string of wordy 
 resolutions which resolved nothing. Nothing, shameful 
 to relate, but the presence of a veteran relic of the Revo- 
 lution with the weight of eightyfour years on his head, 
 who had retired from Congress to end his long career in 
 repose, but who felt his blood boil in his veins and mantle 
 in his cheeks at the spectacle before him, nothing but his 
 presence gave courage to this assembly of men in the 
 vigour of life, who were letting their city fall a prey to a 
 handful of drunkards and depraved boys. The indignant 
 
 hesitation for war, for organising and keeping up a large military force, for 
 filling our arsenals with cannon ; but how difficult is it to procure any for 
 useful enterprises, roads, canals, railroads, schools, penitentiaries, to which 
 the United States devote almost all their resources ? 
 
 50
 
 394 LETTER XXX. 
 
 old man, started up and interrupted the reading of the res- 
 olutions ; " Damn your resolutions !" cried he ; " give me a 
 sword and thirty men, and I will restore order ?" " What ! 
 General Smith," said one of these irresolute makers of res- 
 olutions, "would you fire upon your fellow citizens? 15 
 " Those who break the laws, drive their neighbour from 
 his house, plunder his property and reduce his wife and 
 children to beggary," answered Gen. Smith, " such fellows 
 are not my fellow-citizens." These words, which ex- 
 pressed the thoughts of all, but which no one dared utter, 
 were received with a thunder of applause. The aged 
 senator was named commander of the military force by 
 acclamation, and a few days after was chosen mayor. 
 Since that time Baltimore has been quiet. But when we 
 reflect that order has been restored in a large and flourish- 
 ing city, only because there happened to be present a vet- 
 eran whom death had spared, and who had energy enough, 
 with one foot in the grave, to come forward and teach his 
 fellow citizens, by example, the lessons of the golden age 
 of American liberty, are we not forced to exclaim with 
 Mr Clay ; " We are in the midst of a revolution." 
 
 Mr Clay is no false prophet ; for the events that have 
 succeeded each other since he uttered these words, an- 
 nounce that a crisis is at hand. The American system no 
 longer works well. In the North, the removal of all re- 
 strictions on the right of suffrage, without the creation of 
 any counterpoise, has destroyed the equilibrium. In the 
 South, the old foundation borrowed from the ante-Christian 
 ages, on which it has been attempted to raise the super- 
 structure of a new social order in the nineteenth century, 
 shakes and threatens to bury the thoughtless builders un- 
 der the ruins of their half-finished work. In the West, a 
 population sprung from the soil under the influence of cir- 
 cumstances unparallelled in the history of the world, al- 
 ready aifects a superiority, or rather lays claim to domin-
 
 SYMPTOMS OF REVOLUTION. 395 
 
 ion, over the North and South. Everywhere, the relations 
 established by the old federal compact, become unsuited to 
 the new state of things. The dissolution of the Union, 
 the mere thought of which would have caused a shudder of 
 horrour, ten years ago, which was numbered among those 
 acts of infamy that are not to be named, the dissolution 
 of the Union has been demanded, and no thunder fell upon 
 the head of the perpetrator of the sacrilege. At present it 
 is a common topic of conversation. The dissolution of the 
 Union, if it should take place, would be the most complete 
 of all revolutions. 
 
 What will be the character of this revolution, which is 
 felt to be approaching ? To what institutions will it give 
 birth ? Who must perish in the day of account ? Who will 
 rise on the storm ? Who will resist the action of ages ? I 
 have not the gift of prophecy, and I shall not try to pierce 
 the mystery of the destinies of the New World. But I 
 have a firm faith, that a people with the energy and intel- 
 ligence which the Americans possess ; a people which has 
 like it the genius of industry, which combines perseve- 
 rance with the resources of ingenuity, which is essentially 
 regular in its habits and orderly in its disposition, which 
 is deeply imbued with religious habits, even when a lively 
 faith is wanting, such a people cannot be born of yester- 
 day to vanish on the morrow. The American people, in 
 spite of its original defects, in spite of the numerous voids 
 which a hasty growth and a superficial education have 
 left in its ideas, feelings, and customs, is still a great and 
 powerful people. For such nations, the most violent storms 
 are wholesome trials which strengthen, solemn warnings 
 which teach, elevate, and purify them.
 
 396 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 BALTIMORE, OCT. 8, 1835. 
 
 AMERICAN society is composed of quite different ele- 
 ments, from those of which European society in general, 
 and French society in particular, consists. On analysing 
 the latter, we find, in the first place, the shadow of an 
 aristocracy, comprising the wrecks of the great families 
 of the old order that have been saved from the revolu- 
 tionary storm, and the descendants of the Imperial nobil- 
 ity, who seem to be already separated from their fathers 
 by the distance of ages. 
 
 Next below this is a numerous body of the Middle 
 Classes (bourgeoisie), consisting of two distinct sets ; the 
 one, the active class, is engaged in commerce, manufac- 
 tures, agriculture, and the liberal professions ; the other, 
 generally designated amongst us as the bourgeoisie oisive, 
 consists of men without active employment, landholders 
 who derive an income of 500 or 1500 dollars from their 
 estates, by rents or sharing the produce with the cultivator, 
 without attempting to increase it. and the small body of 
 holders of public stock. 
 
 These t\vo divisions of the Middle Class differ essen- 
 tially from each other, the one labouring, the other only 
 consuming and enjoying what they have. The one in- 
 creases its means, and consequently is able to keep itself 
 above the waves, and maintain, if not to raise, its level ; 
 the other, as M. Lafitte has said, successively transported 
 by time into one stage of society after another, in each of 
 which large additions are made to the general wealth, 
 finds itself growing relatively poorer, and must decrease in
 
 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 397 
 
 numbers. They differ no less in their origin; the one 
 belongs essentially to the commons ; the other has some 
 pretensions to nobility, it is the offspring, or at least the 
 heir and successor of the country-gentry. During the 
 period of the Restoration, they differed also in their politi- 
 cal views ; the members of the one class for the most part 
 took the left side, those of the other preferred the right 
 side. At present, the former accepts the new dynasty with- 
 out reluctance ; the latter, more difficult to be satisfied in 
 regard to the preservation of order, and ready to take 
 alarm at every violation of old established privileges, still 
 preserves a secret preference for the legitimate line. In 
 respect to religious sentiments, the latter is sceptical, and 
 prone to believe that the Voltairean philosophy and the 
 theories broached by the Opposition during the fifteen 
 years, are the nee plus ultra of the human understanding ; 
 the former, shaken in its faith, still keeps alive the sacred 
 fire of religious feeling, rejects the disorganising doctrines 
 of the 18th century, and holds in scorn the lucubrations of 
 the liberal publicists of the Restoration. The one piques 
 itself on its adherence to the positive, the material ; the 
 other concerns itself about the great conservative princi- 
 ples of .society, but refuses to recognise the new interests, 
 which must be allowed to share in the privileges of those 
 of the past. 
 
 These two sections of the Middle Class are not wholly 
 and sharply separated from each other ; but they run into 
 and across each other. A large proportion partakes some- 
 what of both characters, and joins one side or the other, 
 according to times and circumstances. Yet, although 
 often confounded in the same individual, the two interests 
 are, nevertheless, substantially distinct from each other. 
 The base of the pyramid is occupied by the peasants and 
 operatives, divided into two sections ; the one of which 
 has become possessed of property, the other has not yet
 
 398 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 reached that point but aspires after it with eagerness. 
 On one side, we have the mechanics and small proprietors ; 
 on the other, the labourers. It is universally acknowl- 
 edged that the Middle Class, at present, rules in France. 
 The aristocracy is driven from power or keeps itself aloof. 
 The mechanics and small proprietors hardly yet begin to 
 raise their heads. The labourers are nothing. 
 
 In the Northern States of the American Union, society 
 is much less complex in its composition, than in France. 
 Exclusive of the coloured caste, there are here only two 
 classes ; the middle class and the democracy. Of the 
 two conflicting interests, one only has a public existence 
 here ; it is labour. The Middle Class consists of the 
 manufacturers, merchants, lawyers, physicians. A small 
 number of cultivators, and persons devoted to letters or the 
 fine arts, is to be added to these. 
 
 The democracy is composed of the farmers and 
 mechanics. In general, the cultivator is the owner of 
 the soil ; in the West, this rule is without exceptions. 
 Great landholders do not exist, at least as a class, in the 
 North and the Northwest. There is strictly speaking no 
 class of mere labourers ; for although there are day- 
 labourers, and both in the cities and country many work- 
 men without capital, yet these are in fact apprentices, for 
 the most part foreigners, who become in turn proprietors 
 and master-workmen, and not unfrequently rich manufac- 
 turers, wealthy speculators. 
 
 Between these two classes there is, however, no line of 
 demarcation, for the attempts of some coteries to establish 
 certain fashionable distinctions do not deserve notice, 
 or at least are only of a negative value, as timid and 
 often absurd protestations against the abuse of equality. 
 The two classes have the same domestic habits, and lead 
 the same life, and difTer considerably only in respect of the 
 sect to which they are attached, and the pews they occu-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 399 
 
 py. The relations which exist at present between the 
 wealthy bourgeoisie and the wrecks of the aristocracy in 
 France, give an accurate notion of the relative condition 
 of the two classes of American Society. 
 
 Political influence is, at present, entirely in the hands 
 the American democracy, as with us it is monopolised 
 by the Middle Classes. The latter have no chance of 
 getting possession of power in the United States, except 
 temporarily, or by means of accidental divisions in the 
 democratic ranks, when they may rally to their standard 
 a portion of the farmers and mechanics, as happened in 
 1834 ; after General Jackson's attack on the Bank. So in 
 France, it will be impossible for the aristocracy to raise, 
 not its own banner (for it has none), but that of the legiti- 
 mate line, unless the folly of the government should ex- 
 cite new troubles, and inspire the Middle Class, who 
 now support it heartily, with fears for the public security. 
 
 In the Southern States, the existence of slavery pro- 
 duces quite a different state of society, from that of the 
 North ; half of the population there consists of mere 
 labourers in the strictest sense, that is of slaves. Slavery 
 necessarily requires great estates, which in fact, form aris- 
 tocracy. Great estates still continue to be held in the 
 South, notwithstanding the custom of equal partition has 
 very much narrowed them. 
 
 Between these two extremes in the South, an interme- 
 diate class has sprung up, consisting, like our Middle 
 Class, of the workingmen and the men of leisure, the 
 new interest and the old interest. Commerce, manufac- 
 tures, and the liberal professions, on one side ; on the 
 other, the land-holders, corresponding to our moderate 
 country land-holders, living on their estates by the sweat 
 of their slaves, having no taste for work, not prepared for 
 it by education, and even taking little oversight of the 
 daily business of the plantation ; men who would be
 
 400 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 incapable of applying themselves to any occupation if 
 slavery were abolished, just as our proprietors would be 
 unable to get a living, if they were to be deprived of 
 their estates. 
 
 It is plain that the equal partition of estates must have 
 tended to increase the number of this class of men of 
 leisure ; it is numerous in the old Southern States, Vir- 
 ginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, and also in Louisiana ; 
 the check which these States at first experienced in their 
 career, whilst the North was advancing without let, and 
 the contemporaneous increase of this class, are two corre- 
 lative facts, which account for each other. But we do 
 not find this class in the new States of the South. The 
 new generation there, as in the North, devoured with the 
 the passion of making money, has become as industrious 
 as the Yankees. The cultivation of cotton offers it a wide 
 field of activity ; in Alabama and Mississippi, the cotton 
 lands are sold at a very low price. The internal slave- 
 trade furnishes hands in abundance, which are easily pro- 
 cured on credit when one has friends, but no patrimony. 
 The sons of the old Southern States, instead of vegetating 
 on a fragment of the paternal estate, with a handful of 
 negroes, sell off their property at home, extend their means 
 by aid of a loan, which they are sure of being able to 
 repay promptly, and go to the Southwest, to establish a 
 a cotton-plantation, a sort of agricultural manufactory, in 
 which they are obliged to exercise more or less of the 
 activity, and to feel more or less of the hopes and fears of 
 a manufacturer. 
 
 Thus the class which works little or not at all, is dis- 
 appearing in the United States. In the Western States, 
 which are the true New World, it no longer exists at all, 
 in the North or in the South ; you meet with no one 
 there who is not engaged in agriculture, commerce, manu- 
 factures, the liberal professions, or the clerical office. The
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 401 
 
 United States, then, differ from us in having no aristocracy, 
 no idle Middle Class, no class of mere labourers, at the 
 least in the North. But a distinction should be made in 
 regard to the absence of these three classes ; for while it 
 may be admitted that the two last are absolutely becoming 
 extinct, it would be more correct to say that the first has 
 not yet begun to exist. 
 
 Civilisation, in its passage from one continent to the 
 other, has, then, got rid of two classes. This twofold 
 disappearance is, however, only a single phenomenon, or, at 
 most, two phases of a single fact, the industrial progress 
 of mankind. It seems to me to be inevitable, that, in 
 this matter, the Old World should follow the example of 
 the New ; it moves towards the same end under the influ- 
 ence of peculiar causes, and it is irresistibly driven onward 
 by what is commonly called the force of events, that is, 
 by the decree of providence. 
 
 There is a rule superior to all social conventions, codes 
 of legislation, or systems of jurisprudence ; it is, that 
 when a class has ceased to take part in the workings of 
 society, its doom is pronounced ; it cannot preserve its 
 privileges, unless the march of civilisation comes to a 
 stand, and it is kept stationary, as it was in Rome from 
 Augustus to Constantine ; but when the column again 
 sets forward, those who will not serve as soldiers, and are 
 unfit to be officers, those who can do duty neither in the 
 ranks nor in command, who can act neither in the tent 
 nor the field, all these are abandoned as stragglers, and 
 their names are struck from the roll. The law is inflexible 
 and unsparing ; no human power can rescue those whom 
 it condemns from their doom ; they only can save them- 
 selves, by taking part in the general movement. 
 
 This explains the annihilation of the aristocracy of the 
 nobility in France. Between it and royalty, as between 
 royalty and the English aristocracy, there was a long 
 51
 
 402 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 struggle, but the results were as different as the characters 
 of the nations. In France, monarchical unity triumphed ; 
 Louis XI. struck down the aristocracy ; Richelieu muzzled 
 it ; Louis XIV. obliged it to wear the collar. Thus re- 
 duced in a political point of view, it was left in possession 
 of the field of taste and art, which it devoted to the pro- 
 motion of irreligion and corruption of manners. When, 
 therefore, it was weighed in 1789, it was found wanting ; 
 the decree of destiny had gone forth, and the revolution 
 executed it with a cannibal ferocity. The unhappy aris- 
 tocracy remembered its lofty nalure only at the point of 
 death ; it mounted the scaffold with dignity. 
 
 For the same reason, the idle portion of the Middle Class 
 tends towards its fall, for it accomplishes no purpose, 
 which cannot be effected without it. It does not enrich 
 society by its labour, although it lays claim to be reckoned 
 in the number of producers, under the pretext that it holds 
 the soil and exercises a sort of superintendence over its 
 cultivation. The truth is, that it is wholly ignorant of 
 agriculture ; it has received by tradition a certain routine, 
 but the peasantry is as fully possessed of the tradition, and 
 needs no teachers on that matter. The proprietor is some- 
 times, indeed, paid in kind by the peasant, and then sells 
 the grain himself ; but the peasant could easily attend to that 
 business, and would manage it quite as well as his land- 
 lord. Neither does this class serve as the representative of 
 knowledge ; for in this respect, its acquisitions are limited 
 to a little polite literature, an agreeable accomplishment 
 surely, but not answering to the wants and spirit of the 
 age. 
 
 Where a nobility exists and maintains its prerogatives, 
 as in England, it performs a twofold office. In the first 
 place, it devotes itself to the most difficult of all arts, that 
 of governing men, and in this it excels ; whether because 
 it cultivates it by the traditions of experience, or because 

 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 403 
 
 it vigilantly recruits its ranks by enlisting in them such 
 men as have already proved their superiour knowledge of 
 the different interests of society. This reason cannot be 
 urged by our idle Middle Class as an argument for its 
 preservation ; for it is notoriously ignorant of the science 
 of government. 
 
 The second office of a nobility, not less essential than 
 the first in our polished age, is to serve as a pattern and 
 example in the art of living, to teach the art of consuming, 
 without which that of producing procures only partial and 
 illusive gratification, and to encourage the fine arts. On 
 this head nothing can be said in favour of the class alluded 
 to. It excels neither in grace, nor elegance, nor address. 
 The importance which it has acquired by the destruction 
 of the aristocracy, has been fatal to the old French polite- 
 ness, to that exquisite courtesy on which our fathers prided 
 themselves. Within the last fifty years, whilst the Eng- 
 lish have been improving in this respect, much more suc- 
 cessfully than their stiff and unpliant humour seemed to 
 promise, we have forgotten much and unlearned much, 
 under the controlling influence of our Middle Class. 
 
 As for the art of consuming with grace and living well, 
 and that care of the person, the only fraction of which that 
 they can be sensible to, the English call comfort, our Mid- 
 dle Class has lessons to learn, but none to give. It is not, 
 however, the fault of nature ; for no people has received 
 finer and acuter senses than ours. Surely, our nerves are 
 more sensitive, our ear and our palate more delicate than 
 those of the English. Our superiority on these points, is 
 attested by the fact, that, from one end of the world to the 
 other, we are in possession of most of the trades which 
 relate to the person ; the office of cook, head-dresser, dan- 
 cing-master, valetj or tailor, is everywhere monopolised by 
 the French. But to surround oneself with the English 
 comfort, and that more refined comfort which we can
 
 404 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 conceive of, one must be rich. Now our Middle Class is 
 poor, and politically considered this is one of its greatest 
 faults ; it grows poorer daily, either by the operation of 
 the law which commands the equal partition of estates, or 
 of that idleness which condemns it to a stationary income, 
 whilst public wealth and luxury are increasing all around 
 it. It cannot, therefore, encourage the fine arts, for the 
 patronage of the arts is costly ; besides taste is growing rare 
 in France since the fall of the aristocracy. 
 
 Nor can it be affirmed that the unemployed Middle Class 
 in France represents the element of order, and that if it 
 were to disappear, France itself would perish in frightful 
 convulsions. For the labouring class is already ripe for a 
 better state of society, and requires only the advantages of 
 instruction, and of more favourable terms and more nu- 
 merous opportunities for industry, to be in a condition to 
 exercise all the rights of a citizen as usefully as the great- 
 er portion of the Middle Class. And even if the latter re- 
 presents in whole or in part the element of order, it is only 
 by the aid and the instrumentality of four hundred thousand 
 bayonets, exclusive of those of the Middle Class itself, and 
 thus it retains its predominance only by opposing the mul- 
 titude to the multitude ; a critical and dangerous position, 
 which cannot long be held, for the very bayonets are be- 
 ginning to become intelligent. 
 
 The bourgeoisie oisive has, then, only one course to take ; 
 that is, to pass into the ranks of the working men, to fit 
 themselves to become the leaders of the people in its la- 
 bours. When this is done, our fields, which belong espe- 
 cially to their domain, will change their aspect as if by 
 enchantment, and our peasants, who, it cannot be too 
 often repeated, at present form the poorest and most nu- 
 merous class in France, will be raised to a better condition, 
 of which they are worthy. The idle Middle Class must 
 now become with the government, to which the first step 
 

 
 ARISTOCRACY. 405 
 
 in all great projects of improvement belong, responsible for 
 the progress of twenty-five millions of agricultural labour- 
 ers. 
 
 In this change it has every thing to gain itself. By this 
 means it will maintain and confirm its own social rank, for 
 it will thus recover the confidence of the multitude, and 
 will turn its superiority to a good account by exercising a 
 beneficent patronage towards its inferiours. It will ex- 
 change a straitened condition for competency or even 
 wealth, and the tedium of a life of inaction for the satisfac- 
 tion of having done well, the consciousness of having faith- 
 fully performed a great duty. This honourable desertion 
 of the standard of idleness for that of industry is now going 
 forward daily. Let us rejoice at it : let us pray that it may 
 speedily become universal. Let us especially urge gov- 
 ernment to accelerate it, by encouraging the development 
 of industry, by all the means and aids that can improve the 
 condition and resources of agriculture, and inspire the 
 young generation with a desire to devote themselves to 
 this first of arts. 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, OCT. 13, 1835. 
 
 No great society can be durable, except in so far as au- 
 thority is established in it. We may easily imagine a case, 
 however, in which the authority may be temporarily 
 thrown into the shade ; when a great nation is in search 
 of political and social forms suited to its wants, when it
 
 406 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 is obliged to pass from trial to trial, to feel its way, and turn 
 itself successively to different points ; when, beside, its sep- 
 aration from the rest of the world guaranties its indepen- 
 dence, and frees it from the necessity of organising itself 
 under the apprehension of assaults from abroad, it is then 
 permitted, it is even necessary, that it should provide for 
 the greatest possible freedom of motion, and that it should 
 cast off all unnecessary and unprofitable restraints. But 
 then a society without a fixed order and political ties, is 
 an anomaly, a passing phenomenon. The social bonds of 
 opinion and religion, the only ones which exist here, can- 
 not supply the want of political ties, unless they are 
 straightened to such a degree as to become despotic. 
 Besides, when large towns like New York, Philadelphia, 
 and Baltimore, have once grown up, and there is a numer- 
 ous floating population, which opinion and religion cannot 
 watch closely, manners and belief have need of the firm 
 support of the laws. 
 
 The serious character and frequent occurrence of disor- 
 ders in the American Union, at the present time, prove 
 that the period has come, when it will be necessary for 
 authority to be organised. There are interests in the 
 South, for example, which are filled with alarm, and 
 which for want of legal protection, protect themselves, 
 right or wrong, in a brutal manner, and feel the necessity 
 of a power upon which they can rely for safety. In the 
 Middle Class of the cities of the North, there is a popula- 
 tiau, enervated or rather refined by wealth, which is no 
 longer ready to exercise that portion of self-government 
 that consists in the suppression of violence by force, and 
 in the democracy, there is a restless and turbulent element 
 which force alone can hold in check. These two classes, 
 which are peculiar to the North, and whose numbers daily 
 increase, will soon be unable to live with each other, with- 
 out the intervention of power. 

 
 ARISTOCRACY. 407 
 
 Authority has two bases, upon which, to stand firm, it 
 must be supported, like man upon two feet ; these are 
 unity or centralisation, and the distinction of ranks. The 
 corresponding bases of liberty are equality, and independ- 
 ence. The spirit of unity or centralisation is already 
 beginning to appear in several of the United States. (See 
 Letter XXIX.). 
 
 It is not strictly correct to say that the Americans have 
 renounced the principle of authority ; for they have from 
 the beginning adopted the principle of the sovereignty of 
 the people. It is true that they understood it, at first, nega- 
 tively ; that is as a simple denial of authority in the Euro- 
 pean sense, or of military power founded on conquest ; 
 but when the doctrine of equality had once secured to 
 the democracy the superiority over the Middle Class, the 
 democracy gradually took upon itself the exercise of 
 that sovereignty, for its own interest, well or ill under- 
 stood, at the dictation of its passions good or bad ; here, 
 then, was power in the fullest extent of the word, here 
 was a dictatorate : not indeed permanent and steady, but 
 showing itself by starts and at intervals. For the most 
 of Ihe time it may be said to have slumbered, and left the 
 field free to the spirit of individuality ; it has roused itself 
 occasionally only to strike a decisive blow, and to sink 
 back again into its slumbers ; but however irregular may 
 have been its action, still here has been power, and power 
 legal in its character and bold in its operations, and gradu- 
 ally extending their sphere. 
 
 The New England States, which are the incarnation of 
 the spirit of division and individualism, have advanced 
 little in this direction. The old Southern States, although 
 they have more of the spirit of centralisation, have also 
 shown themselves timid in this matter. The Middle 
 States, and particularly New York, have made the great-
 
 408 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 est progress ; those of the West, and particularly of the 
 Northwest, seem disposed to imitate them. 
 
 This centripetal power has operated in two ways ; 
 negatively, in setting limits, and sometimes narrow ones, 
 to the independence of personal action, whether exercised 
 singly by individuals or collectively by companies. It has, 
 for example, reduced the privileges of incorporated com- 
 panies in general, and the railroad and banking companies 
 in particular, or rather it has assumed to itself to be omni- 
 potent in regard to them ; at this moment, the democracy 
 in the North is raising the hue and cry after all companies. 
 It has imposed various restrictions upon commerce, such 
 for instance, as the inspection laws relative to exported 
 produce. Positively, it has interfered with the private 
 transactions of individuals, and suspended or annulled 
 them ; thus in the West, ex post facto laws have been 
 passed in favour of debtors ; or the courts which refused 
 to yield, have been abolished in a body, as in Kentucky ; 
 or monopolies have been created and sold for the profit of 
 the State, as in New Jersey. Within a few years other 
 measures of a more fundamental and comprehensive nature 
 have been adopted, and the centralisation of the schools, 
 the means of communication, and the banks, the three 
 institutions of the most vital importance in a society 
 devoted to industry, has already been commenced. Thus 
 the germ of a vigourous central authority, which will, 
 embrace all the ruling interests of the country, is already 
 beginning to sprout. In this respect the North and the 
 South, the East and the West, with the exception of New 
 England, which is held back by its spirit of subdivision,* 
 seem to be unanimous. 
 
 * It has already been mentioned that Massachusetts has lately adopted the 
 new policy in regard to public works. [And it might be added in respect 
 to the school-system. TUANSL.]
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 409 
 
 If any danger is to be feared in the Northern States, 
 during the coming period, it is not the absence, but the 
 excess of power that is to be apprehended. Whilst the 
 democracy in these States retains its jealousy of the mili- 
 tary, it appears to be regardless of the accumulation of 
 power in the hands of the legislators. It refuses to appeal 
 to arms, even for the suppression of the most brutal vio- 
 lence ; but it is willing to use or abuse the omnipotence 
 of the popular representation, and it would not hesitate, in 
 ease it should be provoked by circumstances, to exercise it 
 in the most tyrannical manner. A representative govern- 
 ment loses the character of a compromise between the 
 different social interests, and degenerates into an instru- 
 ment of despotism in the hands of the multitude. In 
 America, it had its origin in the concessions of the Middle 
 Class to the democracy. At present the positions are 
 reversed ; the Middle Class now stands in need of conces- 
 sions and does not seem likely to get them. 
 
 Instead of the physical tortures of the Inquisition, this 
 despotism, if it gains strength and stability, would practice 
 the most cruel moral tortures, it would have its Procustes' 
 bed for intellect and wealth ; its level for genius. Under 
 pretence. of equality it would establish the most fatal uni- 
 formity. As it would be successively exercised by the 
 changing favourites of the multitude, it would be eminently 
 fickle and capricious ; ever calling in question and unset- 
 tling all that was established,* it would end by palsying 
 
 * In 1834, the Ohio legislature incorporated a Life and Trust Company, 
 with very great powers; the company was organised in 1835, and in 1836, 
 a proposition was made, in the legislature the effect of which would 
 have been indirectly to abolish it. Happily the legislature saw the necessity 
 of keeping up the credit of the State by a faithful adherence to its engage- 
 ments, and the proposition was rejected. Mr Dallas, of Philadelphia, who 
 has been a Senator of the United States, has quite recently urged the adop- 
 tion of ex post facto measures, with the object of annulling the charter of the 
 United States Bank. 
 
 52
 
 410 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 the spirit of enterprise, which has created the prosperity of 
 the country. 
 
 In the Southern States, the white democracy has a 
 pedestal in slavery. In order to realise its own elevation, 
 it is not obliged to be continually engaged in lowering the 
 superiour classes ; it exercises its authority on what is 
 beneath, and thinks less of attacking what is over it. In 
 the South, society is divided into masters and slaves ; the 
 distinction of higher and lower class is there of secondary 
 importance, particularly at the present time, when the 
 alarming state of their relations with the blacks, obliges all 
 whites to act in concert. In the South, moreover, slavery 
 will soon oblige the local governments to maintain an armed 
 police, which, while it keeps down the slaves, will also 
 serve to prevent the repetition of excesses, by which this 
 section of the union has recently been sullied, and the imi- 
 tation of those outrages on private property and public 
 order, of which the North has, of late, so frequently been 
 the theatre. 
 
 Centralisation is one half of authority ; distinction of 
 ranks, the other half, cannot be easily supplied in the 
 United States, particularly in the North, where, however, 
 it is necessary that some institution should give stability 
 and strength to authority. There are two sorts of aristo- 
 cracy ; aristocracy of birth, and aristocracy of talents. I do 
 not now speak of the aristocracy of money, for this has no 
 chance of establishing itself, and can acquire influence only 
 by being merged in one of the two others. 
 
 All great societies which have existed up to this time, 
 have established with more or less solidity, one or the 
 other of these aristocracies, or, to speak more correctly, 
 both. An aristocracy of talents existed even in the bosom 
 of the Egyptian and Hindoo castes ; but Christianity first 
 distinctly established an order of classification founded on 
 intellect, not only in each nation, but throughout the
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 411 
 
 Catholic Church ; the Roman Catholic clergy was organ- 
 ised on this principle. It could not be otherwise ; the 
 unity of God and of the human race was an article of 
 faith ; for the Christian there was only one God, the father 
 of all men, before whom all distinctions of birth were as 
 nothing. 
 
 But by the side of this aristocracy of intellect, all 
 nations which have reached a lofty political elevation, and 
 founded durable empires, have had an aristocracy of birth, 
 a civil and military nobility. Among some not very nu- 
 merous peoples of antiquity, the nobility was composed of 
 all free citizens, who were inferiour in numbers to the 
 slaves. Such were the republics of Greece, whose politi- 
 cal superiority, however, was of short duration. Such were 
 the Arabs, among whom there were rayas, Christians, and 
 Jews, below the faithful. The nations which have had most 
 weight in the balance of European civilisation, have been 
 differently constituted ; above the free citizens, they had 
 a hereditary privileged class. Such was Rome ; such is 
 England ; in the same way the empire of Islam was not 
 solidly or firmly fixed, until a handful of Turks was 
 placed over the Arabs, as a privileged class. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that the last of the great societies 
 which have passed over the face of the earth, Christian 
 society, or that in which the aristocracy of intellect was first 
 fully developed, is also that in which aristocracy of birth 
 has been most strongly marked. The sons of Japhet, 
 who gave the impulse and acted as leaders to this move- 
 ment of civilisation, brought with them from the North, a 
 strong spirit of family, with which their political systems 
 have been deeply impregnated ; thus arose the most strict- 
 ly hereditary nobility which has ever been seen. Till 
 that time the hereditary system had been applied to caste ; 
 the Germans extended hereditary distinctions and func-
 
 412 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 tions to family, with the additional restriction of primo- 
 geniture. What before had been an exception in favour 
 of royal families, they applied to all noble families. This 
 organisation, more or less modified, still prevails in most 
 of the European States. But yesterday, it seemed as vigour- 
 ous as ever in England. It is true that it has there con- 
 formed itself to the spirit of the age, that it has become 
 pliant and elastic, opened its ranks to the aristocracy of 
 intellect, and consecrated its wealth and employed its 
 privileges, not in gratifying its own caprices, nor in satia- 
 ting its passions, but in spreading all around it, the net- 
 work of a vast and beneficent patronage. 
 
 At the present day, there is a violent reaction against 
 hereditary distinctions and aristocracy of birth. On all 
 points of the territory occupied by the Western civilisa- 
 tion, the aristocracy of feudal origin is battered down, 
 here by the democracy, there by the Middle Class, and 
 elsewhere by royalty. In the general league against it, 
 the emperor of Russia gives his hand to the American 
 democracy and the French bourgeoisie, and the British 
 democracy in the person of O'Connell, is allied with the 
 king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria. 
 
 Whatever opinion we may entertain of the present value 
 of aristocracy of birth, we are obliged to acknowledge, 
 that, in the past, it has rendered great services to the 
 human race. But for the establishment, of the feudal 
 system, the barbarian hordes would have continued to 
 drive over the face of Europe, tribe dashing against tribe, 
 nation hurled against nation. The principal distinction be- 
 tween the Germans or Normans, and the followers of 
 Attila or Genghis Khan, is that the former had the instinct 
 of organisation, as is manifested by their conception of 
 the feudal system, and the latter were destitute of it. 
 England is chiefly indebted to her aristocracy for her bril-
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 413 
 
 liant success.* I do not regret the past, for our share of 
 glory is still great, although France has been conquered by 
 her rival in the field and in the cabinet, and in every part 
 of the world, in Europe, America, and Asia. Yet I may 
 be permitted to say, that if the French aristocracy had 
 triumphed in its struggle with Richelieu,! the destinies of 
 the world might have been completely changed; and 
 France, perhaps, would then have played the part which 
 has fallen to the lot of England. 
 
 The right of primogeniture, extended beyond the limits of 
 the aristocracy, ought not to be looked upon as a senseless 
 imitation of the customs of the nobility by vain commori- 
 ers. Although it may be difficult to defend this custom, 
 on the ground of equity, yet it has been one of the causes 
 of the greatness of England. It is clear that it is favoura- 
 ble to the accumulation of capital in few hands ; now 
 capital is like man, powerful when united in masses, fee- 
 ble when divided. England is indebted to the law of 
 primogeniture for an ever swarming army of younger sons, 
 eager to exercise their enterprise in the colonies, and con- 
 
 * The English aristocracy is accessible to every man of superior qualities. 
 The king can and often does make a peer of a commoner, and the order of 
 knights, which is the lowest degree of nobility, is essentially an aristocracy 
 of talents and personal services, not being hereditary. But if the aristocra- 
 cy of intellect has thus got a footing in the aristocracy of birth, the latter 
 has also encroached upon the former ; for with the constitution of the An- 
 glican church, and in the absence of monasteries and the numerous gratui- 
 tous institutions of the olden time, it is more difficult for a swine-herd, like 
 Sixtus V., to rise in the establishment at the present day, than it would have 
 been for him to reach the summit of the Catholic hierarchy in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 t The French aristocracy which fought the fight with Richelieu was 
 Protestant, and was more enlightened than the English aristocracy of the 
 same day. French protestantism was the flower of Europe in every respect, 
 even in industry. It is well known that the English and German manu- 
 factures made great progress immediately after the revocation of the edict 
 of Nantes, which drove four hundred thousand of our fellow countrymen 
 from France.
 
 414 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 tented with their lot, whether because they readily obtain 
 assistance from the head of the family, or because they are 
 full of energy, and know that by industry they will obtain 
 wealth, or because they do not think that the world can 
 be arranged on a different system. Meanwhile, the elder 
 sons have formed an opulent metropolis, which has given 
 ample aid to its distant possessions in all emergencies, and 
 has gradually gained the supremacy in Europe. 
 
 But it would be madness to think of repairing the 
 broken walls of feudalism, or to wish to copy, in France 
 or the United States, the English aristocracy, even with its 
 mode of recruiting its ranks by those distinguished for 
 merit and services ; these orders of things have had their 
 day. Yet all nations which aim to become or to remain 
 powerful, must have an aristocracy ; that is to say, a body, 
 which, whether hereditary or not, may preserve and per- 
 petuate traditions, give system and stability to policy, and 
 devote itself to the most difficult of all arts, which every 
 one at the present day thinks he knows without having 
 learned it, that of governing. A people without an aris- 
 tocracy may shine in letters and art ; but its political 
 glory must be as transitory as a meteor. 
 
 I know not if I allow myself to be deceived by my 
 admiration for the past, although I do not conceal from 
 myself how much of tyranny has been exercised over the 
 great mass of mankind. But I cannot bring myself to 
 believe, that the hereditary principle, or, in more general 
 terms, the sentiment of family, should be entirely exclu- 
 ded from the aristocratical part of the new social order, 
 which, although yet wrapped in uncertainty and mystery, 
 is now struggling into existence on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. The sentiment of family is not becoming 
 extinct. Like all other social institutions, the constitution 
 of the family has undergone various changes, since the 
 beginning of the historical period. In the earlier times,
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 415 
 
 every thing was swallowed up in the father, and the individ- 
 uality the rights, privileges, and duties of the wife and 
 children was the successive growth of ages ; but through 
 all these changes, the family sentiment has gained, rather 
 than lost. If this progressive movement is not violently 
 checked, the new institutions with which our civilisation 
 is now big, must give a place in the political system to the 
 family sentiment, and it is not easy to conceive how this can 
 be done, without a certain infusion of the hereditary prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 It may be objected, that, in the United States, the fam- 
 ily sentiment is much weaker, than it is in Europe. But 
 we must not confound what is merely accidental and tem- 
 porary, with the permanent acquisitions of civilisation. 
 The temporary weakness of the family sentiment was one 
 of the necessary results of the general dispersion of indi- 
 viduals, by which the colonisation of America has been 
 accomplished ; the eiFect must cease with the cessa- 
 tion of the temporary cause which produced it, that is, 
 with the interruption of emigration to the West. As soon 
 as they have got their growth, the Yankees, whose spirit 
 now predominates in the Union, quit the paternal roof 
 never to- see it again, as naturally and with as little emo- 
 tion, as young birds desert forever their native nest as soon 
 as they are fledged ; but the predominance of the Yankees, 
 at least, as they now are, does not seem to me destined 
 to be perpetual ; I do not see in them the ultimate and 
 permanent type of the American. 
 
 Even amongst the Yankees themselves the family sen- 
 timent has maintained a strong hold, by means of the bible, 
 the sanctity and strictness of the marriage tie, the ample 
 powers left to the father in disposing of his property. 
 
 Within the three last centuries, the rnoveable elements 
 have shot up with a wonderful vigour in western civilisation. 
 Manufactures and the press, the organ of philosophy and
 
 416 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 profane learning, have destroyed the balance between the 
 opposing forces of innovation and conservation, whose 
 equilibrium is necessary to constitute order. These two 
 new powers, whose tendency is to reform every thing, 
 have gained the advantage over the old powers of society, 
 and trampled down the twofold aristocracy of birth and 
 talents, the clergy and the nobility. Must we, then, con- 
 clude that these two aristocracies, or even either of them, 
 are stone dead ; or must we not rath'er admit that order, 
 that is to say, the equipoise of the innovating and the con- 
 servative powers, cannot subsist, unless authority is recon- 
 structed in its ancient strength, without, however, retain- 
 ing the brutal traits of its former character ? Is not this a 
 reason that the hierarchy should be established at least 
 as firmly as in past times ? Although it need not borrow 
 from the past the unyielding, unelastic, and absolute fea- 
 tures of the old aristocracies. And is there any principle 
 of stability and solidity, comparable to that of hereditary 
 transmission ? One may be permitted, or rather is obliged, 
 to doubt it. 
 
 Systems of great stability have, doubtless, been organ- 
 ised without hereditary succession. The Catholic hie- 
 rarchy offers the most complete example of this fact ; it 
 has now stood eighteen hundred years. But in order to 
 produce this result, it was necessary to root out the senti- 
 ment of family from the bosoms of its members, by bind- 
 ing them to celibacy ; and to substitute for the natural 
 principle of stability, that of hereditary succession, a mere- 
 ly artificial principle, that of rigourous discipline, and pas- 
 sive obedience, or in other words, stability has here been 
 obtained at the sacrifice of liberty. 
 
 The two powers of commerce and the press are eminently 
 fluctuating and unquiet, only because they are not yet regu- 
 larly organised. They are susceptible of being modified, 
 and of being restrained in their innovating tendencies, so
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 417 
 
 as to render the restoration of the conservative force in all 
 its vigour less necessary. The industrial interest would 
 certainly be less averse to the privileges of the lay aristo- 
 cracy, if it were permitted to participate in them, or if it had 
 its own peculiar prerogatives. Learning, of which the 
 press is the sword, would have showed less antipathy 
 towards the spiritual hierarchy, had not the latter repulsed 
 and rejected it. It is not impossible that we may be des- 
 tined to witness a sort of industrial nobility ; it is even 
 possible that we may come, by degrees, in the course of 
 time, to entertain the question of a more or less complete 
 monopoly of learning and the press under some form or 
 another. Instead of throwing down the aristocracy, we 
 might give it additional strength and stability, by connect- 
 ing it with learning and industry, which would then serve 
 as its buttresses, instead of becoming the instruments of its 
 ruin. In such a system as this, the aristocracy would be 
 less compact and less exclusive ; it would soar less loftily 
 over the rest of mankind ; but it would cover more 
 ground, it would gain in breadth and length what it lost 
 in height, and it would leave nothing beyond the reach of 
 its influence. Equality would probably gain by this 
 arrangement ; but human independence would lose by it. 
 It would be idle to attempt to guess at the future forms 
 which the hierarchy may assume, to foresee the diiforent 
 interests of which society will hereafter be composed, or 
 to name beforehand the institutions in which they will 
 embody themselves. A multitude of combinations, which 
 no one can divine, are possible. Many will take place, 
 either successively in the same country, or simultaneously 
 in different countries. But two things appear to me to be 
 certain : one of these is, that new social phenomena of 
 great magnitude are on the eve of being exhibited, either 
 in America or in Europe ; and the other, that the sentiment 
 53
 
 418 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 of family cannot be ultimately and absolutely erased from 
 the political catalogue. 
 
 For Europeans, the immediate and complete abolition 
 of a hereditary aristocracy seems to me beset with the 
 greatest difficulties. The nations of Western Europe have 
 received their laws and usages from the Germans and 
 Romans, that is, from two stocks strongly impregnated 
 with the sentiment of family ; there is not an inch of 
 their soil, a stone of their monuments, a line of their 
 national songs, which does not awaken this sentiment by 
 recalling this two-fold origin ; it seems, then, impossible 
 that they should be ready to adopt at once a political sys- 
 tem, in which it was allowed no place nor consideration. 
 We may, however, be sure that the principle of heredi- 
 tary succession must henceforth be limited within certain 
 bounds. The idea of perpetuity, whether of punishment 
 or of reward, is foreign from our age, and will not, cer- 
 tainly, be more acceptable to future ages. We live longer 
 in the space of time than our fathers ; the same number 
 of years, therefore, represents a much greater duration 
 than formerly. If the aristocratic investiture were to 
 endure only for a few generations, aristocracy would not 
 cease to be the most coveted of privileges and the most 
 stable of institutions; while the jealousy of the non- 
 privileged classes would be less keen in regard to its pre- 
 rogatives, if the nobility bore upon its front the inscrip- 
 tion ; " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 
 
 This, however, would not be enough ; the aristocracy 
 of birth requires a spur. To exercise the most important 
 functions, it is not enough that one has taken the trouble 
 to be born. There is something monstrous in the privi- 
 lege of the English peerage, of being legislators by 
 hereditary right. In the Middle Age's it was necessary to 
 have gained the spurs, before one could gird on the sword 
 and raise the banner of a knight. In Rome, birth made
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 419 
 
 Patricians, but not Senators. Similar restrictions would 
 be useful in all countries ; with a people like the French 
 and the Southern Europeans, they would be indispensable. 
 
 It is not easy to say whence a hereditary aristocracy in 
 France is to be derived, if we must really have one. A 
 nucleus of old families or of military men would be 
 wanting, around which the new elements might group 
 themselves. Now, the old French nobility allowed itself 
 to be degraded to the state of menials under Lowis XIV., 
 and sunk into the grossest debauchery under Louis XV. ; 
 the trials of exile did nothing for those who escaped 
 the revolutionary axe ; when they re-appeared amongst 
 us, they had forgotten nothing, and learned nothing. The 
 infusion of the military aristocracy of the empire has not 
 regenerated it. Is the retirement to which the old nobility 
 has condemned itself since the revolution of 1830, a re- 
 treat, in which by meditation and repentence it is to renew 
 its youth, or is it not rather a tomb, in which it has buried 
 itself forever? Will the old soil be heaved by earth- 
 quakes into new inequalities of surface ? Have we among 
 our peasants some unknown scions of the slayers of 
 Caesar, or of the children of Brennus, who will be re- 
 vealed to the world by some mighty convulsions ? Or 
 will some Tartar horde from the North, the great hive of 
 nations, put an end to our domestic quarrels, fix them- 
 selves in our palaces, seize our most fertile fields, wed our 
 noblest, richest, and loveliest heiresses, and, sword in 
 hand, proclaim to us ; " The reign of lawyers is over, 
 ours is begun." 
 
 If the United States have also to constitute an aristo- 
 cracy, and give political existence to the sentiment of 
 family, their future would be yet more cloudy and uncer- 
 tain than our own. The hereditary element of aristocracy 
 has always come from conquest, or, at least, has supported 
 itself, by alliance or compromise, by the sword of the
 
 420 LETTER XXXIJ. 
 
 conqueror. How can there be a conquest in the United 
 States ? It is possible that they may conquer Mexico, but 
 they cannot be conquered by it. It cannot be supposed that 
 some red Alexander or Charlemagne from the distant 
 steppes of the West, heading the fierce tribes of the Paw- 
 nee braves, and dragging in his victorious train swarms of 
 revolted negroes, can ever become the founder of a mili- 
 tary dynasty and aristocracy. If the Union should ever 
 be dissolved, and the hardy sons of the West, pouring 
 down from the Alleghanies, should ever conquer the peo- 
 ple of the North, enervated by luxury and enfeebled by 
 anarchy, and those of the South, weakened by servile 
 wars, still no germ of a hereditary aristocracy would exist 
 in such a conquest ; for the victors and vanquished would 
 all be of the same family. 
 
 The Southern States, however, are already organised 
 on the principle of hereditary aristocracy. It is true that 
 the privileged class is so numerous, that, unless a privilege 
 is established within a privilege, they do not form an 
 aristocracy properly so called ; but the fear of a rising of 
 the blacks keeps the whites closely united and forces them 
 to submit to a vigourous organisation of authority at 
 every sacrifice. The relative situation of the whites and 
 blacks admits of no hesitation. 
 
 It is evident that the establishment of a hierarchy pos- 
 sessing any stability, would be the most difficult in the 
 States without slaves, and that the elevation of the senti- 
 ment of family to political dominion, would there encoun- 
 ter the most vigourous resistance. In the maritime States 
 north of the Potomac, the difficulty would seem to be 
 insurmountable. These States contain large towns, with 
 an extensive commerce carried on by great houses, great 
 factories in the English style, powerful trading, financial, 
 and manufacturing companies, that is to say, the germs of 
 an extreme inequality ; yet their laws consecrate a system
 
 ARISTOCRACV. 421 
 
 of absolute equality, and the sovereign democracy shows 
 itself resolved to maintain it at all costs. Between these 
 two counteracting forces, a struggle is going on, and cases 
 might be imagined in which the contest may assume a 
 terrible character. If any cause were to interrupt the 
 prosperity of these States ; if, by means of a separa- 
 tion, which, however, is daily becoming less and less 
 probable, the markets of the South were to be shut 
 against their merchants and manufacturers ; if the sons of 
 the farmers and their hired workmen could no longer have 
 access to the lands and growing cities of the West ; if, to 
 crown their misery, a foreign war should blockade their 
 harbours, they would be exposed to the most frightful 
 convulsions. The Northern States, then, must remain 
 indissolubly wedded to the Union of the States, and 
 firmly devoted to the policy of peace with the European 
 monarchies. 
 
 If, then, it were proved that there was an irresistible 
 necessity for a distinction of ranks in every society, and 
 that the principle of inheritance or sentiment of family must 
 be one of the constituent principles of a privileged class, 
 which is requisite to form the apex of the social pyramid, 
 it must Jbe acknowledged that the prospect of the North 
 is more dark and alarming than that of the South. By 
 the exercise of unyielding vigilance over the slaves, the 
 South may continue to maintain the outward forms of a 
 regular social system. It would, indeed, be a retrograde 
 system, for it would be morally a copy of the ancient 
 order of society, which had its day before the advent of 
 the Christ, patched up with the improved material order of 
 modern times ; it would be despotism, but an orderly, 
 organised despotism, which after all would be a less ter- 
 rible scourge than the anarchy which threatens the North. 
 
 Nevertheless, whatever may be the destiny of aristo- 
 cracy and the political fate of the family sentiment, I am
 
 422 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 loath to believe, that all that energy and intelligence which 
 I have witnessed in the Northern States of the Anglo- 
 American Union, can be swallowed up and lost. No 
 deductions of logic can force me to conclude, that a 
 society, superiour to any that has yet flourished in our 
 ancient continent, will not, one day, and that soon, exist 
 in the fine regions on the east and the west of the Alle- 
 ghanies, around the wide basin of the great lakes, and 
 along the far-stretching banks of these mighty rivers. It 
 cannot be that a superiour race has transported its children 
 to these shores to devour each other. If, on the one side, 
 American civilisation seems to be exposed to formidable 
 dangers, it presents itself in other points of view, with 
 strongly marked features of permanency and stability. If 
 great perils encompass its cradle, is it not the cradle of an 
 infant Hercules ? 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 DEMOCRACY. 
 
 NEW YORK, OCTOBER 22, 1835. 
 
 OUR old European societies have a heavy burden to 
 bear ; it is that of the Past. Each age is the guarantee of 
 the acts of those that have gone before it, and imposes a 
 similar obligation on those which follow it. We are paying 
 interest on our fathers' errors ; we pay it in the first place un- 
 der the form of the public debt ; we pay it also in the charges 
 for the support of our fine army, for among the causes 
 which oblige all Europe to keep the flower of its popula- 
 tion under arms, we must reckon the animosities of our 
 fathers. We pay it, and at a higher rate, in all those
 
 DEMOCRACY. 423 
 
 habits of distrust and suspicion, which have been be- 
 queathed to us from times of anarchy and despotism. The 
 accumulated weight of a long Past must, indeed, be an 
 insupportable burden, since the Roman empire, first in 
 Rome, and afterwards in Constantinople, whither it was 
 removed to escape the load, crumbled and sunk beneath 
 it. All nations, which have been the glory of the world, 
 have been ground to a lifeless dust, like the ashes of the 
 tombs, by the pressure of a Past, which hemmed them 
 in on every side. Will the Europe of our age undergo 
 the fate of its predecessors ? There is reason to hope that 
 it will be more fortunate ; for, having their example before 
 its eyes, it must be wiser than they, and it is at the same 
 time more pliant in its temper, and more elastic in its 
 forms. 
 
 One of my friends, some time ago visiting the great 
 iron- works of Crawshay & Co., in Wales, was struck 
 with the fact, that the numerous railroads connected with 
 the works, were constructed on an old and very imperfect 
 system. On inquiring the reason, and observing that the 
 saving in traction, would pay the expense of a re-construc- 
 tion with the improved rail, " Nothing is more just," lie was 
 told ; " but we retain our old flat rails, and we shall do so 
 for a long time, because it would take two or three years 
 to make a change ; and in the mean while, it being impos- 
 sible to keep the wagons running on both rails at the 
 same time, we should have to stop operations, and to leave 
 fifty thousand workmen without work and without bread. 
 The difficulty is merely in the transition, but at present it 
 seems to be insurmountable." So it is in regard to society. 
 It is easy to see that one system has decided advantages 
 over another, and that if society could be transported from 
 one to the other by a blow of the wand, much would be 
 gained ; but between the two there is a great gulf. How 
 can it be passed ? How is it possible to assure vested
 
 424 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 right, to which nothing seems to be guarantied on the 
 opposite side ? How overcome the opposition of the privi- 
 leged class, who resist the change ? How check the 
 impatience of the multitude, eager to enter into the enjoy- 
 ment of the benefits which it expects to find on the other 
 shore ? 
 
 In regard to social reforms, the question is wonderfully 
 simplified, by merely transplanting it, that is, by going 
 into new countries to resolve it. The old country is 
 then abandoned to old interests and old ideas, and the 
 emigrant lands disengaged and unembarrassed, ready 
 to undertake every thing, and disposed to try every 
 thing. He has left behind him in the mother-country a 
 thousand associations and relations, which surround exis- 
 tence, and give it, if you please, its ornaments and its 
 charm, but which also tend to check its activity, and make 
 society slow to answer the demands for reform. The first 
 of all innovations is the change of soil, and this necessarily 
 involves others. Vested rights do not emigrate ; they are 
 bound to the old soil ; they know no other, and no other 
 knows them. Privileges, which are respected because 
 they are consecrated by time, do not venture upon a new 
 soil, or if they hazard the trial, they cannot become accli- 
 mated there. A colony is like a besieged city ; each one 
 must serve with his person ; each one passes only for 
 what he is worth personally. In a society which has no 
 Past, the Past counts for nothing. 
 
 It is to be remarked, therefore, that projects of social 
 reform, conceived in the bosom of established societies, in 
 which opportunity is afforded for the calm exercise of 
 thought, have generally been obliged to be transported to 
 other shores, and to take root in barbarous lands, in 
 order to be carried into execution, and to be embodied 
 under the form of a new society. Civilisation has advan- 
 ced from the East toward the West, increasing in vigour
 
 DEMOCRACY. 425 
 
 at every remove, although the founders of new colonies 
 have generally quitted a more civilised country for a bar- 
 barous one. Thus Italy and Greece, daughters of Asia 
 and Egypt, have gone beyond their mothers ; thus west- 
 ern Europe has eclipsed the glories of Greece and Rome. 
 Soon after having given birth to the new nations, the 
 old ones have perished violently, or have fallen into an 
 obscurity worse than death, merely from a want of will or 
 energy to apply the principles which gave vigour to their 
 offspring, principles of a new social order, founded on 
 the wider extension of liberty and the greater diffusion of 
 privileges, to their own wants. 
 
 Providence had done much to prepare the European 
 races, when transported across the ocean, for becom- 
 ing the founders of great and powerful nations. The 
 English-Americans, who were the last comers, and 
 did not arrive until after the Spaniards had estab- 
 lished their dominion over equinoxial and southern 
 America, left the Old World only after it had been aroused 
 and agitated by the intellectual revolution of which Luther 
 was the Mirabeau, and of which in England, Henry VIII. 
 was the Robespierre and the Napoleon. This great event 
 had already sown those seeds in the human breast, which 
 were to swell and expand through succeeding ages. Eng- 
 land was already big with those habits of industry and 
 order, which were destined to make her the first nation of 
 the Old World in the sphere of industry and in political 
 greatness. Her children, therefore, carried with them the 
 germ of those principles and institutions, which were to 
 secure to them the same supremacy in the New. They 
 embarked, at least this was the case with those of New 
 England, the pilgrims, the fathers of the Yankees, after 
 having undergone the ordeal of fire and water, after having 
 been seven times tried between the sledge and the anvil, 
 between persecution and exile. They arrived weaned out 
 54
 
 426 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 with political quarrels, and bent on devoting their energies 
 to pacific and useful purposes. 
 
 They seated themselves under a climate which differed 
 little from that of their native skies. Thus they escaped 
 the danger of becoming enervated by the influences of a 
 warm and balmy atmosphere, like that in which the fiery 
 spirits of the Castilian race were tamed ; they landed on 
 an almost uninhabited shore, and had only a few poor 
 tribes of Red Skins for enemies and neighbours, whilst 
 the Spaniards had to contend with the numerous armies 
 of the brave Aztecs in Mexico, and their successors, the 
 Creoles, have had to keep in check on the one side the 
 Camanches and the Indios Bravos of the north, and on 
 the other the Araucanians of the southern Cordilleras. If 
 the English had encountered a numerous population like 
 thart which resisted Cortez, they would have had to con- 
 quer it, and doubtless they would have succeeded in so 
 doing ; but after the victory, they would have been obliged 
 to keep it in subjection, and the yoke of the English race is 
 harder than that of the Spaniards. Their social organisa- 
 tion would then have been founded on the servitude of the 
 inferiour castes, red and mixed ; the new society would 
 have been tainted with a deep-seated disease, which would 
 have reduced it to a much lower state than European 
 society, and have sunk it to the level of ancient communi- 
 ties, which were founded on personal slavery/ It is riot, 
 indeed, completely free from this taint at present ; since 
 negroes have been brought into the country, and twelve 
 States out of twentyfour are defiled with the pollution of 
 slavery. The portion of the country which has been left 
 for the pure white race, is, however, ample enough to 
 receive a large community composed of the same materials 
 with the European nations, and affording great facilities 
 for combining them in a better order. 
 
 If they had found powerful enemies to combat, if war
 
 DEMOCRACY. 427 
 
 had been constantly hanging over their heads, they would 
 have been obliged to submit themselves to a military 
 aristocracy, spite of the instinct of self-government and 
 independence which runs in British veins, and of which 
 they had a double share. In that case, the Anglo-Ameri- 
 can society would have been only a copy, and an inferiour 
 copy of the English ; as the Canadians, for example, were 
 merely an imitation of the French, under the old order of 
 things. The English colonists sometimes had to repel 
 the attacks of the French, who had possession of the west 
 and of the basin of the St Lawrence ; but after the capture 
 of Quebec, they found themselves completely delivered 
 from the most momentous public charge, that of defending 
 their territory and their independence. They were, there- 
 fore, able to dispense with a military establishment, to 
 turn all their thoughts and energies to their domestic con- 
 cerns, and to devote themselves exclusively to the work of 
 colonisation. They ceased to stand in need of the Eng- 
 lish guardianship, and they freed themselves from it, that 
 they might expand themselves and take their own course 
 without let or hindrance. Finally, yielding to their natural 
 impulse, they tried their great democratic experiment, 
 which is already shedding such a brilliant light upon the 
 prospect of improvement in the condition of the lower 
 classes in all countries. From these circumstances and 
 influences, has resulted a new political and physiologi- 
 cal phenomenon, a hitherto unknown variety of the human 
 race, inferiour to the English and French types in many 
 respects, particularly in taste and philosophy, but superiour 
 to the rest of the human family by its extraordinary com- 
 bination of sagacity, energy of will and hardy enterprise, 
 by its admirable aptitude for business, by its untiring de- 
 votion to work, and above all by its recognition and pro- 
 tection of the rights of the labouring classes, hitherto 
 treated as the offscourings of society.
 
 428 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 It seems, then, that the Americans are called to continue 
 the series of that succession of progressive movements 
 which have characterised our civilisation ever since it 
 quitted its cradle in the East. This people will become 
 the founders of a new family, although perhaps the fea- 
 tures which now predominate in it will hereafter cease to 
 be the prominent traits ; whilst the Spanish- Americans 
 seem to be an impotent race, which will leave no posterity 
 behind it, unless by means of one of those inundations 
 which are called conquests, a current of richer blood from 
 the North or the East, shall fill its exhausted veins. 
 
 An eminent philosopher, who is an honour to the French 
 name,* defines the progress of the human race in its slow 
 and majestic pilgrimage round our globe, by the term 
 initiation. Following out this thought, we may pro- 
 nounce North America, at least the nori-slave-holding 
 States, to be already in advance of us ; for, in many 
 respects, what amongst us is accessible only to a small 
 number of the elect, has become common property in the 
 United States, and is familiar to the vulgar. The con- 
 quests of the human mind, to which the Reformation gave 
 the signal and the impulse, and the great discoveries of 
 science and art, which, in Europe are yet concealed from 
 the general eye by the bandage of ignorance and the mists 
 of theory, are, in America, exposed to the vulgar gaze and 
 placed within the reach of all. There the multitude 
 touches and handles them at will. Examine the population 
 of our rural districts, sound the brains of our peasants, and 
 you will find that the spring of all their actions is a con- 
 fused medley of the Bible parables with the legends of a 
 gross superstition. Try the same operation on an Ameri- 
 can farmer, and you will find that the great scriptural tra- 
 ditions are harmoniously combined, in his mind, with the 
 
 * M. Ballanche.
 
 DEMOCRACY. 429 
 
 principles of modern science as taught by Bacon and Des- 
 cartes, with the doctrine of moral and religious indepen- 
 dence proclaimed by Luther, and with the still more recent 
 notions of political freedom. He is one of the initiated. 
 
 Amongst us the powerful instruments and machinery of 
 science and art, the steam-engine, the balloon, the voltaic 
 pile, the lightning-rod, inspire the multitude with a reli- 
 gious dread. In France, out of a hundred peasants in the 
 recesses of our provinces, you will not find one, who, after 
 having witnessed their effects, would dare to lay his hand 
 upon them ; they would fear to be struck dead, like the 
 sacrilegious wretch who touched the ark of the Lord. But 
 to the American, on the contrary, these are all familiar 
 objects ; he knows them all by name, at least, and he feels 
 that they are his. To the French peasant they are mys- 
 terious and terrible beings, like his fetisch to the negro, his 
 manitou to the Indian ; but to the cultivator of the west- 
 ern wilds, they are, what they are to a member of the 
 Institute, tools, instruments of labour or science ; again, 
 therefore he is one of the initiated. 
 
 There is no profanum vulgus in the United States, at 
 least amongst the whites ; and this is true not only in 
 regard to steam-engines and electrical phenomena, but the 
 American multitude is also much more completely initia- 
 ted than the European mass, in all that concerns the do- 
 mestic relations and the household. The marriage tie is 
 held more sacred amongst the lowest classes of American 
 society, than among the Middle Class of Europe, Al- 
 though the marriage ceremony has fewei forms than 
 amongst us, and the connexion is more easily dissolved,* 
 cases of adultery are extremely rare. The unfaithful 
 
 * As in some of the States there is no law of divorce, the legislatures grant 
 it in virtue of their legislative omnipotence. Out of less than 150 acts pas- 
 sed by the New Jersey legislature in 1836, thirteen were acts authorising 
 divorces.
 
 430 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 wife would be a lost woman ; the man, who should seduce 
 a woman, or should be known to have an illicit connexion, 
 would be excommunicated by the popular clamour. In 
 the United States, even the man of the labouring class is 
 more completely initiated in the obligations of the stronger 
 sex toward the weaker, than most of the men of the 
 Middle Class in France. Not only does the American 
 mechanic and farmer spare his wife, as much as possible, 
 all the hard work and employments unsuitable to the sex, 
 but he exhibits towards her and every other woman, a 
 degree of attention and respect, which is unknown to 
 many persons amongst us, who pride themselves on 
 their education and refinement. In public places and 
 in the public conveyances, in the United States, no 
 man, whatever may be his talents and his services, .is 
 treated /with any particular attention ; no precedence or 
 privilege is allowed him ; for all men are equal. But a 
 woman, whatever may be the condition and fortune of her 
 husband, is sure of commanding universal respect and 
 attention.* 
 
 In political affairs, the American multitude has reached 
 a much higher degree of initiation than the European 
 mass, for it does not need to be governed ; every man 
 here has in himself the principle of self-government in 
 a much higher degree, and is more fit to take a part in 
 
 * In the mail-coaches, the best seats are always yielded to women, with- 
 out regard to the order in which the names are booked. The husband also 
 does the marketing and often brings home the provisions himself. Nothing 
 is more common than to see men carrying home a goose or a turkey by the 
 legs, or a basket of fruit. I have before observed that the conjugal and 
 social submission of the woman is more complete in the United States than 
 in France. In Fran <>, a woman engages in business, and with the consent 
 of her husband is acknowledged as a responsible agent ; but there is nothing 
 of this sort in England and the United States. Our children in Canada 
 have even gone beyond us in this respect, and have admitted females to the 
 electoral franchise. 
 
 *
 
 DEMOCRACY. 431 
 
 public affairs. It is also more fully initiated in another 
 order of things, which are closely connected with politics 
 and morals, that is, in all that relates to labour. The 
 American mechanic' is a better workman,* he loves his 
 work more, than the European. He is initiated not 
 merely in the hardships, but also in the rewards, of indus- 
 try : he dresses like a member of Congress ; his wife and 
 daughters are dressed like the wife and daughters of a rich 
 New York merchant, and like them, follow the Paris 
 fashions. His house is warm, neat, and comfortable ; his 
 table is almost as plentifully provided as that of the wealthi- 
 est of his fellow citizens. In this country, the articles of- 
 the first necessity for the whites, embrace several objects, 
 which, amongst us, are articles of luxury, not merely 
 among the lower, but among some of the middle classes. 
 The American multitude is more deeply initiated in 
 what belongs to the dignity of man, or, at least, to their 
 own dignity, than the corresponding classes in Europe. 
 The American operative is full of self-respect, and he 
 shows it not only by an extreme sensibility, by pretensions 
 which to the European bourgeoisie would appear extra- 
 ordinary^ and by his reluctance to make use of the term 
 master, for which he substitutes that of employer, but also 
 by good faith and scrupulous exactness in his engagements ; 
 
 * The English workman is very skilful. Although in certain branches 
 we excel the English, it appears to me incontestable, that at present the 
 English workman is the first in Europe. In some respects, he is also supe- 
 riour to the American ; he will, for example, finish a particular piece of 
 work in a better style, but when out of his special sphere, and separated from 
 the tools of the English workshops, which are of a superiour kind, he will 
 be at loss. The American workman has a more general aptitude ; his 
 sphere is larger, and he can extend it indefinitely at will. He accomplishes 
 at least, as much as the English workman, and when he devotes himself for 
 a long time to the same task, which is not usual with him, he does it better. 
 
 t Thus a shoemaker or tailor will not go to a customer's house to take a 
 measure, but requires all, women and men, to come in person to his shop.
 
 432 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 he is above those vices of slavery, such as theft and lying, 
 which are so prevalent amongst hirelings with us, particu- 
 larly amongst those of the towns and their manufactories.* 
 The French operative is more respectful and submissive 
 in his manners, but hard-pressed by poverty, and surround- 
 ed by temptations, he rarely neglects a chance of cheat- 
 ing his bourgeois, when he can do it with impunity. 
 The operative of Lyons practises the piquage donees ; 
 those of Rheims secrete the gold lace.f There are, doubt- 
 less, frauds committed in America ; more than one smart 
 fellow has his conscience oppressed with numerous 
 peccadilloes. How many strolling Yankee pedlers have 
 sold charcoal for indigo, and soapstone for soap to the rural 
 housewives ! But in the United States these petty frauds 
 are rare exceptions. The character of the American 
 workman is in a high degree honourable, and excites the 
 envy of the European when he compares the prospect here 
 presented to him with the aspect of things in his own 
 country.^ 
 
 * In the relations between the master and the operative, the most de- 
 plorable usages prevail in our large manufacturing towns. Many of the 
 masters are reduced to practise the most disgraceful artifices on their work- 
 men, in order to sustain themselves against the violence of competition ; 
 thus, in some workshops and factories, the hands of the clock are put for- 
 ward in the morning and backward in the evening. The operatives com- 
 mit reprisals in every possible manner. 
 
 f The piquage d'onces, or secretion of silk by the workmen, is one of the 
 cankers of Lyons. The value of the silk thus stolen is estimated at nearly 
 one million of dollars a year ; the thefts committed in the Rheims factories are 
 stated to exceed 600,000 dollars. The operatives exchange the gold-lace at 
 the dram-shops for about one fourth of its actual value. 
 
 + The domestics in the United States are almost everywhere much infe- 
 riour to the operatives, personal service being here looked upon as degrad- 
 ing. In many of the States the domestics will not bear to be called servants, 
 and take thatofAe/p; this is the case in New England. The domestic is 
 there a hired agent whose task is light, and who in many houses takes his 
 meals with the family. On these conditions, native servants may be had in 
 New England who are attentive and intelligent , they stand upon their
 
 DEMOCRACY. 433 
 
 What has been said above applies still more strongly to 
 the farmer ; not being obliged, like the operative, daily to 
 contest the rate of his wages with an employer, surrounded 
 by his equals, and a stranger to the seductions of the city, 
 the American farmer possesses the good qualities of the 
 operative at least in an equal degree, and has his faults in 
 a much less degree. He is less unjust and less jealous 
 towards the richer or more cultivated classes. 
 
 If then we examine the condition of the American mul- 
 titude, we find it, taken as a whole, to be much superiour 
 to that of the mass in Europe. It is true that it appears to 
 be almost completely destitute of certain faculties, which 
 are possessed by the European populace. There are, for 
 instance, at times, a hundredfold more gleams of taste and 
 poetical genius in the brain of the most beggarly lazza- 
 rone of Naples, than in that of the republican mechanic or 
 farmer of the New World. The houseless young vaga- 
 bonds of Paris have transient flashes of chivalric feeling 
 and greatness of soul, which the American operative never 
 equals. This is because the national character of the 
 Italians is impregnated with a love of art, and that gene- 
 rous sentiments are one of the distinguished ^traits of the 
 French character, and the very lowest classes of each 
 nation have some portion of the national spirit. But it does 
 not belong to the multitude to be poets and artists, in Italy, 
 or models of chivalry, in France. Their perfection, above 
 all and in every country, consists in knowing and fulfil- 
 
 rights, and expect to be treated with respect by their employers, but they 
 perform their duties with an honourable fidelity. In most of the non-slave- 
 holding States, the servants are chiefly free blacks, who are generally lazy 
 and depraved, or newly arrived emigrants from Ireland, who are ignorant 
 and without skill, prone to be most provokingly familiar, and in the intoxi- 
 cation of their new condition, so different from the squalid misery they 
 have left behind them, more disposed to take airs upon themselves, than the 
 natives of the country. 
 
 55
 
 434 LETTER XXX III. 
 
 ling their duties to God, to their country, to their families, 
 to themselves, in assiduous and honest industry, in being 
 good citizens, good husbands, and good fathers, in providing 
 for the welfare and guarding the virtue of those dependent 
 upon them. In order to make a fair comparison between 
 the multitude in Europe and the multitude in America, 
 we should consider them in reference to these qualities ; for 
 these belong to all varieties of the human race and all forms 
 of civilization, and upon their development and stability in 
 the greatest number, depends the strength of empires. 
 To render the parallel between the two hemispheres per- 
 fect, it would be necessary to set against the mechanic 
 and the farmer in the United States, the members of a 
 corresponding class among a people of Teutonic origin, 
 language, and religion, that is, the English operative and 
 farmer. European civilisation, setting aside the Sclavoni- 
 ans, who have recently appeared with brilliant success 
 upon the stage, divides itself into two branches, that of 
 the North, and that of the South, one Teutonic, the other 
 Latin, distinguished by different qualities and tendencies. 
 American society, being a scion of one of these branches, 
 can be more readily compared with it, than with any of the 
 offsets of the other. It is easy, therefore, to determine the 
 superiority of the American mechanic and farmer to those 
 of England, but it is difficult to decide how much inferiour 
 or superiour any class of American society is to the corres- 
 ponding Spanish, Italian, or French class ; it is only ne- 
 cessary, however, to open one's eyes to be convinced, that 
 the multitude among these three people are far from hav- 
 ing reached, in the direction in which nature points their 
 career, the same degree of progress that the Americans 
 have done in theirs. 
 
 The American democracy certainly has its faults, and I 
 do not think that I can be accused of having extenuated 
 them. I have not concealed its rude demands upon the
 
 DEMOCRACY. 435 
 
 higher classes, nor its haughty airs of superiority to other 
 nations. I will even admit, that, in many respects, it is 
 rather as a class, and in the lump that it recommends itself 
 to favour ; for the individuals that compose it, are desti- 
 tute of those hearty and affectionate qualities, by which 
 our French peasantry would be distinguished, if it were 
 once delivered from the wretchedness which now brutifies 
 it ; but it is in the mass and as a whole, that I now judge 
 the American multitude. 
 
 The American democracy is imperious and overbearing 
 towards foreign people ; but is not a keen sensibility, a 
 good quality rather than a defect in a young nation as in 
 a young man, provided that it is backed by an energetic 
 devotion to a great work ? Pride is ridiculous in an ener- 
 vated and inert people, but in an enterprising, active, vig- 
 ourous nation, it is consciousness of power, and confidence 
 in its high destiny. The foreign policy of .the American 
 democracy is profoundly egoistic, for national ambition is 
 the characteristic of a growing nation. Cosmopolitanism 
 is generally a symptom of decline, as religious tolerance is 
 a sign that faith is on the decay. The pretensions of the 
 United States are unbounded : they aspire to the sover- 
 eignty over South America ; they covet one by one the 
 provinces of Mexico ; but in spite of the rules of morality, 
 it is might which makes right in the relations between 
 people and people. If the United States should wrest the 
 Mexican provinces from the Spanish race, partly by craft 
 and partly by force, they would be responsible to God and 
 to man for the consequences of the robbery ; but they 
 would not be alone guilty. If the country which they had 
 seized, flourished in their hands, posterity would pardon the 
 act ; but, on the other hand, it would condemn the Mexi- 
 cans, if, with such neighbours at their doors, they should 
 continue as at present, to stagnate in stupid security and in
 
 436 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 a miserable lethargy, and the powers of Europe, if they 
 neglected to warn them and to rouse them from their torpor. 
 
 The Romans were intolerably arrogant towards other 
 people ; they spoke to the all-powerful sovereigns of the 
 monarchical East, and to the heirs of Alexander the Great, 
 that brutal and imperious language, which General Jackson 
 has flung into the face of a monarchy of fourteen centuries. 
 They treated all who stood in the way of the gratification 
 of their insatiable thirst for conquest, as slaves who had re- 
 volted against the divine will. That Punic faith, with the 
 charge of which they branded the memory of their rivals, 
 was often the only faith which they practised. Posterity, 
 however, has proclaimed them the greatest people of 
 history, because they were successful ; that is, because they 
 formed a durable empire out of conquered nations by the 
 wisdom of their laws. The Anglo-Americans have much 
 resemblance to the Romans whether for good or for evil. 
 I do not ssy that they are destined to become the masters 
 of the world ; I merely mean to affirm that by the side of 
 faults which shock and offend foreign nations, they have 
 great powers and precious qualities which should rather 
 attract our attention. It is by these that posterity will 
 judge them ; by these they have become formidable to 
 other people. Let us aim to get the vantage-ground of 
 them, not by denouncing their defects to the world, but 
 by endeavouring to make ourselves masters of their good 
 qualities and their valuable faculties, and by cultivating 
 and developing our own. These are the surest means of 
 maintaining our rank in the world in spite of them and in 
 spite of all. 
 
 At the same time that the American democracy conducts 
 itself more and more haughtily abroad, it is jealous of all 
 who fall under the suspicion of seeking to encroach upon 
 its sovereignty at home. In this, it only imitates the most 
 boasted of aristocracies. The system which it has pursued
 
 DEMOCRACY. 437 
 
 towards the higher classes, is dictated by the instinct of 
 self-preservation, just as that of the European aristocracy 
 and Middle Class toward the classes respectively below 
 them, has been instinctive with them. The democracy is 
 determined to lose none of its conquests, which have been 
 gained, not by plundering its neighbours, not by pillaging 
 provinces, not by robbing travellers, but by the sweat of 
 its brow, by its own resolute industry. Who, then, 
 amongst us will cast the first stone at it ? I can readily 
 conceive, that, at first sight, we of the Middle Class in 
 Europe, should be offended by its pretensions, and that we 
 should feel our sympathy excited by the spectacle of our 
 American fellows conquered and bound. But let us, nev- 
 ertheless, confess, that this democracy has managed the 
 affairs of the New World in such a manner as to justify the 
 supremacy it has won. and to excuse its jealousy towards 
 every thing that might have a tendency to spoil it of its 
 conquest. This is the first time since the origin of society, 
 that the people have fairly enjoyed the fruits of their 
 labours, and have shown themselves worthy of the pre- 
 rogatives of manhood. Glorious result ! Even though it 
 has been obtained by the temporary humiliation of the 
 classes with which our education and habits lead us to 
 sympathise, it is the duty of every good man to rejoice at 
 it, and to thank God for it ! 
 
 Wo to tyranny by whomsoever exercised ! Far be it 
 from me to apologise for the brutal and savage, and some- 
 times bloody excesses, which have lately been so often 
 repeated in most of the large towns in the United States ! 
 Should they be continued, the American democracy will 
 be degraded and will lose forever the high position it now 
 occupies. But criminal as these acts are, it would be 
 unjust to impute them to the American people, and to con 
 demn to ignominy the whole body of these incomparabl 
 labourers. Popular excesses in all countries are the work
 
 438 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 of an imperceptible minority, which the existing system 
 in the United States is sufficient to restrain. That sys- 
 tem needs, then, some amendment, which shall suit it to 
 preserve the good qualities of the nation in their purity, 
 and which, indeed, seems already on the point of being 
 introduced, for theories of absolute liberty are evidently 
 losing favour in the United States. 
 
 It would be a mistake to infer from what has been said, 
 that the American civilisation is superiour to our own. 
 The multitude in the United States is superiour to the 
 multitude in Europe ; but the higher classes in the New 
 World are inferiour to those of the Old, although the mer- 
 its of the latter are rather virtual than real, and belong 
 rather to the past or the future than to the present ; for 
 the higher classes in Europe, both aristocracy and bour- 
 geoisie, turn their good qualities to little account, whether 
 on behalf of themselves or the people. The higher 
 classes in the United States, with some exceptions and 
 taken as a whole, have the air and attitude of the van- 
 quished ; they bear the mark of defeat on their front. 
 As they have been always and in almost all circum- 
 stances much mingled with the crowd, both parties 
 have naturally borrowed many habits and feelings from 
 each other. This exchange has been advantageous 
 to the multitude ; but less so the higher classes. The 
 golden buckler of the Trojan has been exchanged for the 
 leather shield of the gallant Diomed. Each of the two is, 
 therefore, superiour in one of the two great elements of 
 society, and inferiour in the other. This is the system of 
 compensation. 
 
 If, then, from the superiority of the labouring classes in 
 the United States, it were necessary to draw a conclusion 
 as to the relative rank of European and American civilisa- 
 tion in the future, the following would be the only neces- 
 sary inference : in order that American society should have
 
 DEMOCRACY. 439 
 
 the advantage of ours, it would be requisite that it should 
 comprise a class, which, intrinsically and in its exterior, 
 should be as much elevated above the people, properly so 
 called, as our higher classes are above the great mass of 
 our population ; or, in other words, it depends upon our- 
 selves to give to our social order the advantage over that 
 of the United States, by raising our lower class both of the 
 towns and the country from the ignorance and brmal de- 
 gradation in which they are plunged, and developing their 
 powers and qualities in conformity with our national dispo- 
 sition and the character of the race to which we belong. 

 
 

 
 NOTES.. 
 
 NOTE 1 page 26. 
 
 Use of Iron. 
 
 ONE must go to England to appreciate the value of iron, the 
 scarcity of wood having obliged the English to apply it to a 
 % great number of purposes to which no one on the continent 
 would dream of its being applicable. At every step and under 
 all forms, you meet with cast-iron, bar-iron, sheet-iron, and 
 steel ; machines, piles, columns of all dimensions from two 
 inches to four feet in diameter, water-pipes and gas-pipes, posts, 
 grates, bridges, roofs, floors, whole quays and roads, of iron. 
 But for it, those light and airy structures, so slender in appear- 
 ance, yet supporting such enormous weights, the huge six story 
 warehouses of St Catharine's docks for instance, would be heavy 
 and gloomy dungeons. The gas which comes from a distance 
 of seven or eight miles, is made and brought in by the aid of iron. 
 Those bridges, springing as it were across the water, those 
 graceful and elegant footways across the canals, as well as the 
 fluted columns of Regent's Street, are of iron, cast or wrought. 
 The quantity of pig-iron annually produced in Great Britain and 
 Ireland, is about 800,000 tons ; in France it amounted in 1834 
 to 269,000 tons, beside 177,000 tons of bar iron. The ordinary 
 price of both kinds with us is about double the price in England. 
 Until the present day, stone has been almost the only material 
 employed in durable works of architecture ; but stone having 
 much less cohesive force than iron, is only suited to the Egyp- 
 tian, Greek, and Roman styles of architecture. The light and 
 airy architecture of the Middle Ages, requires a material pos- 
 sessing great strength in a small compass, such as the metals ; 
 and some attempts have already been made in France and Ger- 
 56
 
 442 NOTES. 
 
 many to apply cast-iron to the construction of Gothic structures. 
 Stone has already done all that it is capable of doing, and we 
 can have nothing new in architecture, except by means of new 
 materials. In my opinion, iron is to be the instrument of this 
 regeneration of the architectural art. The price of pig-iron is 
 now so low, that the cost of a building of this material, would 
 not exceed that of one constructed of hewn stone. 
 
 NOTE 2 page 26. 
 
 Quantity of Coal mined in France, England, and Belgium. 
 
 Mr McCulloch, in his Dictionary of Commerce estimates the 
 quantity of coal annually mined in England to amount to 
 16,000,000 tons.* The extensive inquiries of M. Le Play, who 
 has carefully examined all the English coal-fields, have led him 
 to estimate it much higher ; it does not, probably, fall short of 
 30,000,000 tons, of which 5,000,000 are consumed in the iron 
 manufacture. Mr McCulloch estimates the amount of capital 
 employed in the coal-trade at 10,000,000 pounds, and the num- 
 ber of persons engaged in it at from 160,000 to 180,000. 
 Other estimates carry this last number to 206,000, of whom 
 121,000 work in the mines. 
 
 In France 2,500,000 tons of coal were raised in 1834, and 
 about 18,000 persons were employed in the mines. France 
 also imports coal from Belgium and England. Next to Eng- 
 land, Belgium furnishes the largest quantity of coal ; the three 
 great coal-fields of Mons, Charleroi, and Liege with some small- 
 er basins, yielding about 3,200,000 tons annually. 
 
 * In a later work (Statistics of the British Empire, 1839), Mr McCulloch esti- 
 mates it at 26,188,000 tons. TRANSL.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 443 
 
 NOTE 3 page 33. 
 
 Value of Exports of Domestic Produce and Manufactures from 
 England, France, and United States, from 1820 to 1835. 
 
 Years. 
 
 France. 
 
 England. 
 
 United States. 
 
 1820 
 
 francs. 543,100,000 
 
 fr. 910,600,000 
 
 fr. 275,400,000 
 
 1821 
 
 450,700,000 
 
 917,500,000 
 
 232,700,000 
 
 1822 
 
 427,600,000 
 
 925,000,000 
 
 265,800,000 
 
 1823 
 
 427,100,000 
 
 890,000,000 
 
 251,300,000 
 
 1824 
 
 505,800,000 
 
 960,000,000 
 
 269,900,000 
 
 1825 
 
 543,800,000 
 
 972,500,000 
 
 356,800,000 
 
 1826 
 
 461,000,000 
 
 787,500,000 
 
 282,700,000 
 
 1827 
 
 506,800,000 
 
 930,000,000 
 
 314,000,000 
 
 1828 
 
 511,200,000 
 
 920,000,000 
 
 270,000,000 
 
 1829 
 
 504,200,000 
 
 895,000,000 
 
 296,800,000 
 
 1830 
 
 452,900,000 
 
 955,000,000 
 
 316,900,000 
 
 1831 
 
 455,500,000 
 
 930,000,000 
 
 326,600,000 
 
 1832 
 
 507,400,000 
 
 921,000,000 
 
 336,500,000 
 
 1833 
 
 559,400,000 
 
 992,500,000 
 
 374,700,000 
 
 1834 
 
 509,360,000 
 
 1,041,000,000 
 
 432,100,000 
 
 1835 
 
 577,400,000 
 
 1,184,200,000 
 
 539,700,000 
 
 England exports hardly any but manufactured articles. The 
 United States export chiefly raw produce. Raw Cotton forma 
 half of the value of their exports, as manufactured cotton forms 
 about half of those of Great Britain. Agriculture furnishes three 
 fourths or four fifths of the exports of domestic articles from the 
 United States, and manufactures, only one tenth. Above two 
 thirds of the exports of France are manufactures, and nearly 
 one third, agricultural produce, 
 
 Ports. 
 London - 
 New York - 
 Boston 
 Newcastle - 
 Liverpool 
 Sunderland - 
 Philadelphia 
 New Orleans 
 New Bedford 
 
 NOTE 4 page 36, 
 
 Shipping. 
 
 tonnage belonging to the principal ports of 
 the United States in 1835. 
 
 Tonnage. Ports. Tonnage. 
 
 566,152 Whitehaven - - 65,878 
 
 376,697 Hull .... 63,524 
 226,041 Bordeaux - - 69,690 
 
 . 208,100 Marseilles - - - 68,314 
 
 207,833 Havre - - - 68,070 
 
 132,070 Portland (U. S.) - 57,666 
 
 86,445 Baltimore - - 54,416 
 
 79,467 Nantes - - - 51,528 
 76,533 Bristol - - - 42,913
 
 444 NOTES. 
 
 To render the comparison exact, it would be necessary to de- 
 duct one fourth from the French tonnage, in order to allow for the 
 different modes of measurement. The French method is mathe- 
 matically more correct, but it lays our vessels under the disad- 
 vantage of being obliged to pay heavier tonnage dues ; but a 
 law of 1836 has authorised the government to make a Change in 
 this respect. 
 
 Out of 1,824,000 tons of shipping entered and cleared at the 
 French ports in $1835, only 31 per cent, was French shipping ; 
 out of 5,025,000 tons entered and cleared at the British ports, 
 75 per cent, was of English vessels. In the United States, from 
 1817 to 1830, foreign shipping formed less than 15 per cent, of 
 the vessels in the foreign trade ; in 1831, it was 26 per cent., 
 and in 1832, 30 per cent., leaving 70 per cent, for the American 
 shipping. 
 
 French navigation is in a deplorable state of feebleness, and 
 the evil increases daily. In 1832, the total amount of French 
 shipping was 670,000 tons, of British 2,225,000, of American 
 1,440,000. In France and England the amount varies little 
 from year to year, but in the United States it increases rapidly, 
 and in 1837 it was 1,896,685. 
 
 NOTE 5 page 38 omitted. 
 
 NOTE 6 page 38. 
 
 All the banks in the United States, like the Bank of France in 
 Paris, are at once banks of discount and loan, and banks of de- 
 posit and circulation. Almost the whole currency of this coun- 
 try consists of paper-money, the metals being chiefly in the 
 the vaults of the banks, which cannot dispense with them, be- 
 cause their bills are payable on demand in gold and silver. 
 
 The old Bank of the United States, founded in 1791, had a 
 capital of ten million dollars, the Federal government holding 
 one fifth of the stock. The present Bank was incorporated in
 
 NOTES. 445 
 
 1816, with the right of establishing any number of branches. The 
 Bank of England also has branches in Manchester, Birmingham, 
 Liverpool, Leeds, Gloucester, Bristol, Hull, Newcastle, Norwich, 
 Swansea, and Exeter. The Bank of France has but two 
 branches, one at St. Etienne and the other at Rheims, both estab- 
 lished since 1836. 
 
 The capital of the Bank of the United States is 35,000,000, 
 in 350,000 shares of 100 dollars each. That of the Bank of 
 Bngland is 11,000,000 pounds, divided into shares of one hun- 
 dred pounds ; and that of the Bank of France is 90,000,000 
 francs, in shares of 1000 francs, of which 22,100 are held by 
 the Bank itself. The United States' Bank stock was at a pre- 
 mium of 25 to 30 per cent, before General Jackson began his 
 war upon it, that of the Bank of France is at an advance of 129 
 per cent., and that of the Bank of England at 116 per cent, 
 advance. 
 
 The operations of the Bank of the United States consist in 
 discounting commercial paper with two names, in making ad- 
 vances upon public stock and other securities, and in trading in 
 the precious metals. The Bank of France discounts commer- 
 cial paper with three names, or with two names and a deposit of 
 Bank stock as collateral security. It is at present authorised to 
 advance four-fifths on public stock on the sole guarantee of the 
 depositor. It also makes advances on deposits of bullion and for- 
 eign coins, charging a commission of one eighth for fortyfive days, 
 or one per cent, a year. The commercial attributes of the Bank of 
 England are still more limited than those of the Bank of France. 
 It makes no advances on public securities, except while the trans- 
 fer books are closed, which occurs for a certain period in London. 
 
 The Bank of the United States discounts at the rate of six per 
 cent. ; the Bank of France at four per cent. ; and the Bank of 
 England at different rates, but rarely at less than four per cent., 
 which is high in London. In 1836, the rate was advanced to 
 four and a half and five per cent. The Bank of the United 
 States effects foreign and domestic exchanges ; the Bank of 
 England only domestic exchange, which it does without charge 
 for those who have an account open with it ; and the Bank of 
 France operates neither.
 
 446 NOTES. 
 
 The circulation of the Bank of the United States has varied 
 within late years from ten to twenty millions ; in October 1835, 
 it was twentyfive millions, consisting chiefly of five and ten dol- 
 lar notes. Of late years the circulation of the Bank of England 
 has amounted to about 100 million dollars. Since 1830, the 
 Bank of France has usually had a circulation of forty millions, 
 so that the two last institutions play a more important part as 
 banks of circulation, than the first. In the United States, the 
 five or six hundred local banks, whose aggregate circulation is 
 five or six times greater than that of the United States' Bank, 
 perform this service. This coexistence of more than five hun- 
 dred distinct currencies is the great defect in the financial system 
 of this country. The joint-stock banks, which have been of late 
 much multiplied in England, tend to introduce the same con- 
 fusion into that country. 
 
 The Bank of the United States has generally in its vaults 
 about ten millions in specie, but during the struggle with Gene- 
 ral Jackson, it had, at times, a sum equal to its bills in circula- 
 tion, or from sixteen to eighteen millions. The Bank of England 
 endeavours to keep on hand from forty to fifty millions, but it 
 sometime sinks as low as thirty. The Bank of France always 
 has at least twenty and sometimes more than forty millions ; in 
 1832, it had fiftythree millions, or more than its whole pap/er 
 circulation. 
 
 The Bank of the United States does not discount notes of 
 above four months' date, although this restriction is voluntary ; 
 the great mass of its discounts is on paper of two months date. 
 The Banks of France and England cannot discount bills of more 
 than 90 days date. 
 
 The bills of the United States Bank circulate throughout the 
 Union ; the revenue officers are obliged to receive them on the 
 same footing as specie. The Bank, in return, is obliged to 
 redeem them in specie on demand, under penalty of paying inter- 
 est on the sum demanded at the rate of 12 per cent, per annum, 
 and of forfeiting its charter. It is not, however, bound to 
 redeem the bills of the branches, except at their respective coun- 
 ters, although it does so in fact. The bills of the Bank of Eng-
 
 NOTES. 447 
 
 land are a legal tender in England, and with the exception of 
 those of the branches, are redeemable in gold and silver only in 
 London. The bills of the Bank of France are current only in 
 Paris, and are not there a legal tender. 
 
 The Bank of the United States and the Bank of France only 
 issue bills payable to bearer.'; the Bank of England has a cer- 
 tain amount of Bank post-bills, or bills payable to order at sev- 
 en days sight, being equivalent to about one tenth or one twelfth 
 of its whole circulation. 
 
 The Bank of the United States receives deposits, on which it 
 pays no interest. The Scotch banks pay interest on deposits at 
 the rate of 2 to 2i per cent. The Banks of England and France 
 do not pay interest on deposits, but the latter gets bills on Paris 
 cashed for its depositors without charge. 
 
 The number of accounts current opened by the Bank of the 
 United States is indefinite ; in that country and Scotland almost 
 all persons have an account with the banks, and are thus freed 
 from the necessity of keeping any considerable sums on hand. 
 They hardly keep enough in the house to defray the expenses of 
 the household for a few days, and payments are made by checks 
 on a bank. The banks are, therefore, the cashiers of the whole 
 community. This concentration of the whole disposable fund of 
 the country in the banks, gives them the means of extending their 
 operations greatly, and renders the capital, which would other- 
 wise be scattered about and lie idle, active and productive. 
 
 The dividends of the Bank of the United States have been reg- 
 ularly at the rate of seven per cent. ; those of the Bank of 
 France vary from eight to ten on the original capital ; those of 
 the Bank of England are at present eight per cent, on the nomi- 
 nal capital, which is the original capital successively modified 
 by acts of parliament. Independently of the ordinary dividends, 
 which were originally seven per cent., afterwards rose to ten, 
 and are now eight, the Bank of England has made several ex- 
 traordinary dividends, and it increased the nominal capital on 
 which the dividend^ are paid, twentyfive per cent, in 1816. Mr 
 McCulloch makes the total sum of the extraordinary dividends 
 and of the reserved profits carried to the extension of the capital, 
 from 1799 to 1832, eighty two millions, which with the reimburse-
 
 448 NOTES. 
 
 merits required by the new charter, amounts to one hundred and 
 five millions. The Bank of France has divided beyond its ordi- 
 nary dividends, the sum of four and a half millions. 
 
 The Bank of the United States, previous to 1834, was charg- 
 ed with the keeping of the public moneys, which were remitted 
 to it by the collectors and reccivers'.and of which it was the le- 
 gal depository, with the transfer of funds for the service of the 
 Treasury, and with the payments on the public debt and of pen- 
 sions. Tt is forbidden to lend more than 500,000 dollars to the 
 Federal government, and more than 50,000 to any State. In 
 this respect it differs from the Banks of France and England, 
 which make, and especially once made, enormous advances to 
 the state. This is the principal object of the Bank of England, 
 the whole capital of which is lent to the government at the rate 
 of three per cent. Besides this the Bank of England receives 
 the Exchequer Bills, and the Bank of France the Treasury Cer- 
 tificates (bons du Tresor), which bear a low rate of interest. 
 These banks have made inconceivable loans to the state in time 
 of war ; in 1814, the advances of the Bank of England amount- 
 ed to 165 millions, inclusive of the public deposits, which some- 
 times amounted to 60 millions. The Bank of France, however, 
 has at present little connexion with the government, and has, there- 
 fore, greatly extended its commercial operations. In 1836, it 
 had on hand notes to the value of 27 million dollars, without 
 reckoning four millions advanced on deposits of public funds ; 
 from 1830 to 1835 the amount had not exceeded seventeen 
 millions. 
 
 The local or State banks in the United States are organized 
 on principles analogous to those of the National Bank. They 
 are incorporated companies, receiving their corporate privileges 
 from the States, and, therefore, confined to the limits of the 
 State. Sometimes their bills are not current out of the town or 
 county in which they are situated. They are institutions of 
 credit and circulation almost exclusively for the use of merchants. 
 Not having the resource of exchanges, and rarely having any 
 deposits, they aim to enlarge their profits, by extending their cir- 
 culation through excessive discounts and loans, which often floods 
 the country with an excess of paper money. Their capitals sel-
 
 NOTES. 449 
 
 dom exceed one million dollars, and are often much less ; but 
 several have lately been established in the South with capitals 
 of from three to ten millions. 
 
 In England the private bankers have the right of emitting bills 
 payable to bearer, except, if there are less than six partners in 
 the house, within the distance of sixty miles of London ; in point 
 of fact there are none issued within that space. The bills issued 
 by private bankers amount to about 8,500,000 pounds. In 
 Paris, the Bank of France has the exclusive privilege of issuing 
 bills payable to bearer. 
 
 The joint stock banks in England are not chartered compa- 
 nies, nor are they under any control. All the partners are perso- 
 nally responsible. These country banks are very numerous, and 
 they offer, perhaps, less security than the American State banks. 
 In all times of crisis, in 1792-93, 1814-15-16, 1825-26, many of 
 them have become bankrupts or suspended payment ; in 1816, 
 240 were obliged to take one of these alternatives. In 1809 
 their issues amounted to 24 million pounds; in 1821-23, they 
 had fallen eight millions, and in 1825, had again risen to four- 
 teen millions. Since the suppression of notes of less than five 
 pounds, they have been much reduced. At present (1836), 
 these institutions are becoming multiplied to such a degree as to 
 inspire serious alarm in prudent men. 
 
 NOTE 7 page 49. 
 Failures in the United States. 
 
 It would be excessively unjust to the Americans not to ac- 
 knowledge that they are improving daily in respect to failures. 
 In a new country it is natural that a failure should be little thought 
 of, because every thing is necessarily an experiment, and all 
 speculation is a game of hazard. The public is very indulgent 
 on this point, because it considers a failure what it really is, 
 nineteen times out of twenty, a misfortune and not a fraud. 
 The bankrupt is looked upon as a wounded soldier, who is to be 
 treated with sympathy, and not with contempt. Congress has the 
 57
 
 450 NOTES. 
 
 power of passing a bankrupt law, but it has not yet exercised 
 this power, and the different States have made temporary pro-, 
 visions for the case, which treat the insolvent debtor with great 
 indulgence, discharging him from any further obligation towards 
 his creditors on his giving up all his property for their benefit, 
 It is felt that too much severity in regard to failures would have 
 the tendency to check the spirit of enterprise, which is the life of 
 the country. None of those rigourous provisions which disgrace 
 French legislation and endanger the interests of creditors, exist 
 here ; and if the lenity of the laws is sometimes abused, the 
 inconvenience is much less than that caused by the harshness of 
 ours. 
 
 In the large maritime towns, however, it is felt, that if bank- 
 ruptcy is not a disgrace, it is at least a private and public calami- 
 ty, which is to be averted by every exertion. The history of the 
 great fire in New York in 1835 affords ample proof of this. 
 The amount of the loss exceeded fifteen millions, and the insu- 
 rance companies found themselves unable to meet their engage^ 
 ments. On the receipt of the news in Europe, there was not 
 a merchant who did not tremble for his American debts ; for in 
 Europe, in general, and in France, in particular, such an event 
 would have deprived the sufferers of all credit, of all means of 
 repairing their losses. In France the singular custom prevails of 
 offering you credit, if you do not need it ; but if you stand in 
 want of it, you will get none. In the United States, on the con- 
 trary, immediately after this disaster, the President of the United 
 States Bank hastens to place two millions at the disposal of the 
 New York merchants, and the banks in general give out that 
 they shall discount the paper of the sufferers in preference. 
 
 Although the sphere of the public authorities in the United 
 States is very narrow, the corporation of New York and the 
 State government, rivalled each other in offers of assistance ; 
 the former offered an advance of six millions, not to individuals, 
 as was done in France in 1830, but to the insurance companies, 
 whose ruin would have led to a general bankruptcy ; it thus 
 strengthened tfce hands of commerce, by relieving its citadel. 
 Even Congress, which is not allowed to take a step out of its lit- 
 tle district, and is scarcely permitted to notice what is going on
 
 NOTES. 451 
 
 beyond the Capitol, was moved, and extended the term of pay- 
 ment of custom dues. The result of this admirable cooperation 
 of individuals, companies, and public authorities was to prevent 
 any considerable failures. 
 
 The Americans have a courage in presence of commercial 
 disasters, like that of the soldier on the field of battle. In a crit- 
 cal juncture, they face bankruptcy, as old grenadiers march upon 
 a battery under a fire of grape-shot. If it is true that commerce 
 is to supplant war in the future, it must be confessed that the 
 Americans are more advanced on the march than we are ; for 
 they have applied all their energies and qualities to commerce, 
 whilst we still devote ours to war. They have discovered a new 
 sort of courage which produces and enriches ; we shine only by 
 that courage which perishes or destroys. 
 
 The merit of this new spirit does not belong exclusively to the 
 Americans ; they had the germ in their blood, and have receiv- 
 ed the gift from the mother country. At the period of the late 
 calamity, the English were no more subject to a panic terrour 
 than their New York descendants. It is within my knowledge, 
 that American merchants established in Paris and having houses 
 in the United States, having applied to London bankers for a 
 continuation of credit, were immediately assured, that not only 
 the former amount of credit should be continued, but that they 
 should be allowed an unlimited credit in order to enable them to 
 repair their losses. Some French bankers, on the contrary, 
 similarly situated, hastened to cut off the credit they had pre- 
 viously given. 
 
 In a country organized for commerce, and having the proper 
 institutions of credit, the money and merchandise of the mer- 
 chant, are not his only capital ; the most valuable part of his 
 capital consists of his experience, his correspondents and con- 
 nexions, the weight of his name. This constitutes a moral 
 capital, which conflagrations cannot destroy, nor accidents of 
 any kind injure. In New York, by the aid of this moral capi- 
 tal, on which a high value is set in commercial countries, a mer- 
 chant who has not property to the amount of more than 50,000 
 dollars, operates as if he had five or six times as much. In 
 Paris, the same man, with the same fortune, would operate with 

 
 452 NOTES. 
 
 only about twice as much. Thus the wealth of the United States 
 increases in a much faster ratio than in France. 
 
 NOTE 8 page 54. 
 
 The American newspapers are vcjy numerous, but in con- 
 sequence of their great number their circulation iscompara- 
 tively small. There are few daily papers, whose circulation ex- 
 ceeds 2,000, and not one, which exceeds 4,000 ; that of most of 
 the newspapers is not more than 400 or 500. The American 
 newspapers have little resemblance to the French and English. 
 They are chiefly mere advertising sheets ; they do not direct 
 public opinion, they follow it. This local character does not al- 
 low of their having much influence out of their particular district. 
 In New York, only the city newspapers are read ; in New Or- 
 leans, those of New Orleans are the only ones generally seen ; 
 whilst in France those of Paris, and in England those of London 
 are read every where. The Globe and the National Intelligen- 
 cer of Washington are, however, pretty generally circulated. 
 Newspapers in the United States are not powers, they are mere 
 instruments of publicity within the reach of all. They are con- 
 sulted for the news, nor for opinions. The profession of a wri- 
 ter does not stand so high in England as in France, and is less 
 honourable in the United States, than in England. With the ex- 
 ception of a very few newspapers, at the head of which are the 
 New York American edited by Charles King, and the Philadel- 
 phia National Gazette, edited by Robert Walsh, the American 
 press occupies a low rank in the social scale. 
 
 Notwithstanding their large size, the American newspapers 
 are low-priced ; the cause is plain enough ; the profits are 
 derived chiefly from advertisements, and the expenses of editing 
 are inconsiderable, as there is generally but one editor. There 
 is no stamp duty ; but the postage on them is higher than in 
 France.* The circulation of some of the French newspapers 
 
 * The postage of newspapers in France is two fifths of a cent within the de- 
 partment where it is published, and four fifths on any distance beyond it.
 
 NOTES. 453 
 
 exceeds 10,000 ; and some cheap publications have lately had a 
 circulation of 90,000 or 100,000. 
 
 NOTE 9 page 53. 
 
 In 1832, the transfer of funds between different points of the 
 Union, or between the Union and foreign countries, effected by 
 the Bank of the United States, amounted to 255 millions, of 
 which 241,718,710 was for domestic, and 13,456,737 for 
 foreign transactions. The Bank received only 217,249 dollars 
 for commissions on this vast sum. 
 
 NOTE 10 page 64. 
 
 Specie and Paper Money. 
 
 The quantity of gold and silver coined in France with the new 
 die, amounted, up to 1836, to about 750 million dollars, of which 
 three fourths were in silver. It is not probable that more than 
 one fourth of that sum has been melted and exported ; there 
 would- then remain about 550 millions. A part of this immense 
 sum is out of circulation, and is buried in the coffers of individu- 
 als or in the pockets of the poor, who do not dare trust their sav- 
 ings to any person or institution. 
 
 In the United States, in 1834, the 405 local banks from which 
 official or semi-official statements had been received, had 65 mil- 
 lion dollars paper in circulation, and 14,250,000 dollars in specie 
 in their vaults. There were beside, 101 banks, estimated to have 
 in circulation 12,650,000 dollars of paper, and 2,825,000 dollars 
 in specie on hand. The Bank of the United States had at that 
 time a circulation of 10,300,000 dollars, and specie to the 
 amount of 13,865,000 dollars. The whole currency of the 
 United States, exclusive of the small amount of specie in the 
 hands of individuals, amounted, therefore, to 88 millions in 
 paper and specie. At this time, the banks had withdrawn a 
 large amount of their bills from circulation, their issues before
 
 454 NOTES. 
 
 the war on the Bank having exceeded 100 millions. Since 1834, 
 the amount of specie in the United States has been considerably 
 increased, several of the States having prohibited the emission of 
 bills of less than five dollars, a measure, which would tend to 
 promote the use of the metals. 
 
 The following statement, showing the quantity of paper money 
 in circulation in the United Kingdom at the end of 1833, is 
 chiefly from McCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce. 
 
 Of Bank of England 19,500,000 
 Of Branches of do. - 3,300,000 
 
 Of Private Bankers - 8,500,000 
 Of English Country Banks - 1,500,000* 
 
 Of Scotch Banks - - 2,000,000 
 Of Irish Banks - - - 7,500,000 
 
 Total 42,300,000 
 
 At the same time the amount of the precious metals in circu- 
 lation and in the banks, was estimated at 45,800,000 pounds, of 
 which seven millions were in silver. 
 
 NOTE lit page 96. Cherokees and other Indians. Omitted. 
 NOTE 12t page 98. Public Lands. Omitted. 
 
 NOTE 13t page 119. Temperance Societies. Omitted. 
 
 NOTE 14 page 132. 
 
 Cotton Manufacture. 
 At the end of 1836, the Lowell cotton factories comprised 
 
 * In August 1336, this had been increased to 3,600,000 pounds, 
 t These notes, with several others, have been omitted, as they contain merely 
 statements familiar to most readers in this country.
 
 NOTES. 455 
 
 129,828 spindles and 4,197 looms, and employed 6,793 opera- 
 tives of whom 5,416 were women. The quantity of cloth made 
 was 849,300 yards a week, or at the rate of 44 million yards a 
 year ; raw cotton consumed 38,000 bales, or 15 million pounds 
 yearly. 
 
 In 1831, the American manufacture employed 62,157 opera- 
 tives, of whom 38,927 were women and 4,691 children. There 
 were beside 4,760 hand-weavers, 40,709 persons employed in 
 accessory labours, making the whole number of persons engaged 
 directly and indirectly 117,626. The factories contained 
 1,246,503 spindles, and 33,506 looms, and produced 230,46 1,990 
 yards of stuffs, besides 1,200,000 pounds of yarn, which were 
 woven in families during the winter. The consumption of raw 
 cotton was 77 million pounds. The value of the products was 
 26 million dollars, eleven millions of which were paid in wages. 
 (Pitkiri's Statistics, 526.) 
 
 There were in England, in 1834, according to Baines, (His- 
 tory of Cotton Manufacture,) 100,000 power-looms, and 
 250,000 hand-looms. The difference between the number of 
 the hand-looms in England and the United States deserves to be 
 noticed. The hand-weavers in '.Great Britain form one of the 
 most wretched classes of the population. The English) factories 
 employed 729,000 persons, or with the dyers, bleachers, meas- 
 urers, folders, packers, &c., and all hands employed in building 
 and repairing the mills, 1,500,000. In 1833 the English facto- 
 ries consumed 332 million pounds of cotton. The value of their 
 annual products is estimated at from 30 to 34 million pounds 
 sterling ; the wages of the 724,000 operatives amount to 13 
 millions. 
 
 In 1834, the French manufacture employed 600,000 persons, 
 and the annual value of its products was about 110 million dol- 
 lars ; quantity of cotton consumed 100 million pounds. If these 
 statements are correct, it follows, that our operatives produce 
 less than the English or Americans, 

 
 456 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE 15 page 186. 
 
 Production and Consumption of Cotton. 
 
 In 1834, one of our most able manufacturers, M. Koekhlin, 
 made the following estimate of the production and consumption 
 of cotton throughout the world. 
 
 Production. 
 
 In the United States 
 
 In India ... 
 
 In Brasil 
 
 In Bourbon, Cayenne, &c. - 
 
 In Egypt and the Levant 
 
 Total 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 In England - 
 
 In France 
 
 In the United States 
 
 In China - 
 
 In Switzerland, Belgium, &c. - 
 
 - 437,500,000 Ibs. 
 
 75,000,000 
 
 - 30,000,000 
 
 7,500,000 
 
 - 25,000,000 
 
 575,000,000 
 
 375,000,000 Ibs. 
 
 100,000,000 
 45,000,000 
 37,500,000 
 42,500,000 
 
 Total, 600,000,000 
 
 Several other countries not enumerated above yield cotton. 
 China produces some which she consumes, or exports under the 
 form of nankeens ; Mexico produces nearly enough for her own 
 consumption ; Mr Koekhlin has meant to speak only of what be- 
 longs to the general commerce. He has somewhat overstated 
 the consumption of England, and underrates that of the United 
 States. 
 
 NOTE 16 page 154 omitted. 
 
 NOTE 17 page 161. 
 
 Trial of the Incendiaries for burning the Ursuline Convent. 
 The intolerant spirit of a part of the Protestant population was
 
 NOTES. 457 
 
 offended by the sight of the Ursuline Convent on Mount St. Ben- 
 diet, within the limits of Charlestown, a town adjoining Boston. 
 The sisters devoted themselves to the instruction of young girls, 
 and many Protestant families had confided daughters to their 
 care. Every thing proves that they were by no means devour- 
 ed by a spirit of proselytism. In the beginning of August, 1835, 
 a report got about in Charlestown, that one of the sisters, a young 
 woman, was detained in the convent by force. The Selectmen 
 of the town had a meeting, five of them went to the convent, 
 which they examined from cellar to garret, had an interview 
 with the sister who was represented as a victim of the Catholic 
 discipline, and became satisfied that she was there of her own 
 free will. This conviction was made known to the public. But 
 on the night of August 12th, the convent was surrounded and at- 
 tacked by a handful of ruffians, at the head of whom was one 
 John Buzzell, a brickmaker, noted for his brutal character. 
 The sisters were driven from the convent with violence ; every 
 thing was plundered ; the tombs of the dead were forced open. 
 The building was then fired ; it was burnt in sight of the Se- 
 lectmen ; the Boston firemen hastened to the spot, but were re- 
 pulsed by the populace by main force. 
 
 Several men, taken in the act, were arrested, and among 
 others Buzzell ; they were tried in Boston in 1835.* The wit- 
 nesses were afraid to bear testimony, a mysterious influence had 
 changed their language ; the public prosecutor, who had pre- 
 viously demanded in vain a postponement of the trial, until the 
 causes which instigated the violence had been traced, pleaded 
 the cause of order with a generous indignation. All the prison- 
 ers were acquitted, except one poor youth of the name of Marcy 
 who was sentenced to fifteen or twenty years imprisonment ; 
 but public opinion soon after obliged the Executive to grant him 
 a pardon. Buzzell and Kelly, one of his accomplices, became 
 heroes ; they were carried about in triumph, and a subscription 
 was made for their benefit. The sisters petitioned the Massachu- 
 
 * The author is mistaken ; they were tried in the county in which the offence 
 was committed. Boston is in a different county. TBANSL. 
 
 58
 
 458 NOTES. 
 
 setts legislature for indemnity ; the most intelligent citizens of 
 Boston interested themselves in their favour, but the House of 
 Representatives rejected the petition by a large majority. On 
 the anniversary of the outrage, the populace of Charlestown cel- 
 ebrated it as a day of rejoicing, and got up a shooting match, the 
 target being a representation of the lady superior of the convent. 
 The Selectmen succeeded in suppressing the figure, but not the 
 procession. Finally, to crown these deeds of impudence and 
 savage violence, two of the incendiaries, in 1836, presented a 
 petition to the legislature to be indemnified for the damages they 
 had suffered by the trial. The committee to whom the petition 
 was referred, reported a grant of 500 dollars to each of these 
 wretches ; but to the honor of Massachusetts, their report was re- 
 jected on the second reading. 
 
 NOTE 18 page 172. Omitted. 
 
 NOTE 19 page 180. Omitted. 
 
 NOTE 20 page 193. 
 Taxation. 
 
 It has repeatedly been made a question of late, whether the 
 United States were more or less heavily taxed than France. 
 The subject may be considered under several points of view. 
 The systems of Taxation in the two countries are very differ- 
 ent. The taxes in the United States are less numerous 
 then they are in France, and are differently distributed. The 
 country population, that is the great majority, pay much less in 
 the United States than in France ; but in the large towns the in- 
 habitants pay nearly as much as with us, except in Paris. The 
 disproportion between the two countries becomes much greater, 
 if instead of estimating the amount in money, we give it in day's 
 labour, which is the most rational manner. The day-wages of 

 
 NOTES. 459 
 
 a labourer being about threefold as much in the United States as 
 they are with us, and other things being in the same proportion, 
 it follows, that, in the former, a tax of three dollars to three dollars 
 and a half, which is about the general average, is not more burden- 
 some to the mass of the people, than a tax of one third that sum 
 would be in France. The average tax in France, or six dollars a 
 head, is equivalent to twentysix days' work in our country ; while 
 the average in the United States is only equivalent to four days' 
 work in that country. 
 
 It is true, thaf, amongst us, all the public expenditures are 
 comprised in the budget ; all our taxes amount to 190 million 
 dollars. But in the United States, there are various expenses 
 supported by individuals and companies, which do not appear 
 in the sum of the public taxes. Toll is paid on a very large 
 number of roads : public worship is maintained at the expense 
 of the worshippers ; hence heavy charges on the rich. 
 
 It is important to remark, that the public revenue in the United 
 States is almost wholly employed in a productive manner, in 
 useful undertakings, in public works, schools, and various kinds 
 of improvements. There is no Federal debt, that of most of the 
 States and towns is inconsiderable, there are no retiring pensions, 
 and the army is small ; whilst more than half of our budget, or 
 118 million dollars, is devoted to the charges on the public debt, 
 pensions, and the sea and land forces, we cannot expect to re- 
 store the balance in our favour, because we cannot dismiss our 
 soldiers, nor declare a national bankruptcy ; but we might di- 
 minish our present inferiority (paradoxical as it may seem), by 
 adding some millions to our budget for useful and productive 
 works. 
 
 The military service itself is a public burden and a very heavy 
 one ; but it is difficult to. rate the amount of this in money. In 
 France it takes one man out of eighty inhabitants from labour, 
 but in the United States only one out of 2,300, This tax might 
 be lightened, by employing the army in public works. 
 
 We may also notice the two following differences, which ap- 
 pear to me essential ones, between American and French 
 taxes :
 
 460 NOTES. 
 
 1. The American taxes, whether it be from the mode of their 
 assessment, or from the difference of conditions of the two coun- 
 tries, never press heavily upon the itaxables, nor give them 
 any uneasiness ; they never embarrass transactions nor interrupt 
 business. On the contrary, amongst us the tax is often an 
 oppressive burden ; our registry dues, and excise on property 
 changing hands, often occasion serious embarrassments and 
 even insurmountable obstacles in the way of enterprise. 
 
 2. In the United States the treasury fears to incur the public 
 odium ; amongst us the most respectable citizens are subjected to 
 the most vexatious treatment ; our officers of the customs have 
 adopted practices unworthy of a civilised people ; our wives and 
 daughters must submit to be searched in the most shameless 
 manner by vile hags, and these brutal proceedings have not the 
 poor excuse of being useful to the customs. Their avowed ob- 
 ject is to prevent the smuggling of articles, with which, in spite 
 of three lines of custom-house officers, the country is inundated, 
 and which it is well known are brought in by dogs* on a large 
 scale, and not in the pockets of private persons. The branches 
 of industry, which they are designed to protect, are altogether of 
 secondary importance, and cannot be weighed in the balance 
 against public decency. 
 
 NOTE 21 page 11. 
 
 Construction and Cost of Steamboats in the West. 
 
 The western steamboats are on the high pressure principle, 
 with a force of six or eight atmospheres. The boilers are on 
 deck, in the bow of the boat ; the cylinder is horizontal ; there 
 are two wheels, one on each side. Formerly, a single stern 
 wheel was generally used. Only one engine is used to a boat. 
 The pistons are not of metal, an arrangement which necessarily 
 involves a great loss of power, but which renders repairs more 
 
 * On the northern frontier there are from 500,000 to 600,000 dogs which enter 
 annually ; not more than 6,000 or 7 ,000 are seized-
 
 NOTES. 461 
 
 easy, an important consideration with inexperienced engineers. 
 The engines are of very simple construction and cost little ; 
 those for the largest boats cost from 10,000 to 14,000 dollars; 
 the engines of the French government packets in the Mediterra- 
 nean cost nearly 60,000 dollars. The cylinders of the most 
 powerful engines in the western boats are of 30 inches diame- 
 ter, and seven feet stroke. These boats consume enormous 
 quantities of wood ; the larger ones burning from one and a half 
 to one and three quarters cords an hour ; the rate of speed rarely 
 exceeds ten miles an hour even down stream. 
 
 In the east a good steamer from 175 to 200 feet in length 
 with copper boilers, which are necessary to resist the action of 
 salt water, costs from 70,000 to 80,000 dollars, including the 
 furniture. The carpenter's work of the hull costs about thirty 
 dollars a ton, exclusive of the iron. The engine, when there is 
 but one, costs from 12,000 to 15,000 dollars, exclusive of the 
 boilers. The North America cost 100,000 dollars ; a good boat, 
 well taken care of, lasts about twelve or fifteen years in the east. 
 The eastern boats are very fast and safe, and of late years, 
 great improvements have been made in their construction, prin- 
 cipally by Mr Stevens of New York. They move at the rate of 
 fifteen miles an hour in still water, and generally carry nothing 
 but passengers. Their usual length is from 180 to 200 feet, 
 with a breadth of twenty four or twentysix, without including the 
 paddle-boxes ; their usual draught of water about four or five feet 
 in the rivers, and from six and a half to nine feet in the bays 
 and seas. Their engines are on the low or mean pressure prin- 
 ciple ; the cylinder is vertical, and they often have two engines ; 
 the stroke of the piston has been carried to ten or eleven feet ; the 
 diameter of the cylinders, in some of the boats, is five feet four 
 inches. They consume from twentyfive to thirty cords of wood 
 an hour. 
 
 The number of steamboats in the United States, at the end of 
 1834, was 386 of an aggregate of 95,648 tons, of which 237, 
 with a tonnage of 64,347 tons, were on the western waters. 
 [In 1839 the number of boats was about 800, with an aggregate 
 tonnage of 157,473 tons ; of these about 300 were on the west-
 
 462 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ern rivers and 70 on the lakes. TRANSL.] There were in 
 France, in 1834, 82 steamboats, with a total tonnage of not more 
 than 15,000 tons, beside 37 belonging to the government. The 
 whole number of steamers in England is about 480. 
 
 NOTE 22 page 268. 
 
 Summary Statements of the Public Works in the United States. 
 
 The six tables which follow present a recapitulation of the 
 statements given in Letter XXL, with the cost per league in 
 francs. [Many of the statements in the Letter are slightly varied 
 from the original, in conformity with official reports, and the 
 cost and distances have there been reduced to English measures 
 and Federal money. In these tables the author's statements are 
 given without change because sufficient materials for a total re- 
 casting of them are not accessible to the translator. In reduc- 
 ing federal money to francs, M. Chevalier assumes the dollar to 
 be equal to 5.33 francs; the league is of 4,000 metres, and con- 
 sequently equivalent to two and a half English statute miles. 
 TRANSL.] 
 
 I. LINES BETWEEN THE EAST AND WEST. 
 
 Length. Leagues. Total Cost. Francs. 
 
 Names. Car 
 
 1st Line, Erie Canal, 
 
 Branches, 
 Lateral Railroads, 
 
 Albany and Schenectady, 
 
 Schenectady and Utica, 
 
 Rochester and Buffalo, 
 2d Line, Pennsylvania 
 
 Canal, 
 
 Branches, 
 
 Columbia Railroad, 
 
 Portage 
 
 Bald Eagle Canal, 
 Union 
 
 3d Line Baltimore and Ohio 
 
 Railroad, 
 4th Line, Chesapeake and 
 
 Ohio Canal, 74 1 
 
 Georgetown and Alexan- 
 dria Canal, 
 
 1404 
 101 
 
 111 
 
 1314 
 
 10 
 33 
 
 ailroads 
 
 , Canals. 
 
 1 65,000,000 
 
 Railroad.. 
 
 Co.tper 
 League. 
 
 262,600 
 
 64 
 314 
 
 29 
 
 
 4,000,000 
 8,000,000 
 3,000,000 
 
 615,400 
 254,000 
 103,000 
 
 33 
 
 144 
 
 1 95,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 13,870,000 
 
 19,200,000 
 8,550,000 
 
 392,300 
 
 581,800 
 600,000 
 100,000 
 420,300 
 
 34 
 
 
 16,000,000 
 
 470,600 
 
 
 33,000,000 
 
 
 442,800 
 
 
 2,600,000 
 
 
 866,700
 
 5th Line, Virginia Canal, 
 
 Railroad section, 
 Old James River Canal, 
 6th Line, Richelieu Canal, 
 Laprairie Railroad. 
 
 NOTES. 
 100 25,000,000 
 
 463 
 
 12 
 4| 
 
 60 
 
 250,000 
 
 15,000,000 250,000 
 5,300,000 441,600 
 
 1,870,000 393,700 
 
 800,000 123,100 
 
 727^2141 242,640,000 74,550,000 
 
 II. LlNES CONNECTING THZ VALLEYS OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND 
 ST. LAWRENCE. 
 
 Names. C. 
 
 Ohio Canal, 
 
 Miami (1st section,) 
 " (2d section,) 
 
 Wabash and Erie Canal, 
 
 Michigan " 
 
 Pittsburgh and Erie " 
 
 Beaver and Sandy " 
 
 Mahoning " 
 
 Mad River Railroad, 
 
 Welland Canal. 
 
 Canals on the St. Law- 
 rence, 
 
 Louisville and Portland 
 Canal, 
 
 Totals 
 
 459 614 147,790,000 10,500,000 
 
 Length. Leagues Total Cost. Francs. 
 
 
 
 Colt per 
 
 mala. 
 
 Railroads. Canali. Railroads. 
 
 League. 
 
 122 
 
 22,720,000 
 
 186,200 
 
 264 
 
 5,227,000 
 
 197,200 
 
 50$ 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 219,000 
 
 84 
 
 16,800,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 37J 
 
 37,500,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 414 
 
 5,000,000 
 
 120,500 
 
 36| 
 
 7,250,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 36 
 
 7,200,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 
 614 10,500,000 
 
 170,700 
 
 Hi 
 
 11,040,000 
 
 982,300 
 
 13 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 1,538,000 
 
 1 
 
 4,053,000 
 
 5,400,000 
 
 III. LlNES ALONG THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 Names. Ci 
 
 Raritan And Delaware 
 Canal, 
 
 Delaware and Chesapeake 
 Canal, 
 
 Dismal Swamp Canal, 
 
 Branch, 
 2d Line, By the Cities. 
 
 Boston and Providence 
 Railroad, 
 
 Providence and Stoning- 
 ton Railroad, 
 
 Amboy and Camden 
 Railroad, 
 
 Newcastle and French- 
 town Railroad, 
 
 Baltimore and Washing- 
 ton Railroad, 
 
 Winchester Railroad, 
 
 Federicksburg and Rich- 
 mond Railroad, 
 
 Petersburg and Roanoke 
 Railroad, 
 
 Length. Leagues. Total Cost. Francs. 
 
 rials. Ri 
 
 lilroucls. CanaU. 
 
 Cost per 
 Railroads. League. 
 
 17 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 705,9'00 
 
 54 
 
 9 
 24 
 
 14,000,000 
 1 3,733,000 
 
 2,545,500 
 324,600 
 
 17 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 470,600 
 
 21 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 381,000 
 
 244 
 
 12,250,000 
 
 505,200 
 
 64 
 
 2,130.000 
 
 327,700 
 
 12 
 13 
 
 8,000,000 
 2,600,000 
 
 750,000 
 200,000 
 
 23| 
 
 3,900,000 
 
 164,200 
 
 24 
 
 3,470,000 
 
 144,600 
 

 
 64 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Belfield Branch Railroad, 
 
 6 
 
 840,000 140,000 
 
 Portsmouth and Roanoke 
 
 
 
 Railroad, 
 
 31 
 
 4,000,000 129,000 
 
 Charleston and Ham- 
 
 
 
 burg Railroad, 
 Georgia Railroad. 
 
 54| 
 46 
 
 6,400,000 116,900 
 8,230,000 179,300 
 
 Totals 
 
 34 2794 29,733,000 
 
 67,840,000 
 
 IV. LINKS RADIATING FROM THE LARGE 
 
 TOWNS. 
 
 
 Length. Leagues. Total 
 
 Cost. Francs. 
 
 
 
 * Cost per 
 
 Names. Cai 
 
 iali. -Railroad! Canals. 
 
 Railroad* League. 
 
 Boston and Lowell Rail- 
 
 
 
 road, 
 
 104 
 
 8,000,000 780,000 
 
 Boston and Worcester 
 
 
 
 Railroad, 
 
 17| 
 
 6,670,000 375,800 
 
 Middlesex Canal 
 
 12 2,800,000 
 
 233,000 
 
 New York and Paterson 
 
 
 
 Railroad, 
 
 6* 
 
 1,100,000 176,000 
 
 Harlaem Railroad, 
 
 2 
 
 2,000,000 1,000,000 
 
 Jersey City and New 
 Brunswick Railroad, 
 
 iti 
 
 1,800,000 160,000 
 
 Brooklyn and Jamaica 
 
 
 
 Railroad, 
 
 5 
 
 1,600,000 320,000 
 
 Philadelphia and Norris- 
 
 
 
 town Railroad, 
 
 w 
 
 2,500,000 400,000 
 
 Westchester Railroad, 
 
 3* 
 
 540,000 154,300 
 
 Philadelphia and Trenton 
 Railroad, 
 
 10) 
 
 2,133,000 203,100 
 
 Baltimore and Susquehan- 
 
 
 
 nah Railroad, 
 
 24 
 
 7,100,000 295,800 
 
 Santee CanaJ, 
 
 9 3,470,000 
 
 385,600 
 
 New Orleans Canals, 
 
 4 12,000,000 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 New Orleans and Carrol- 
 
 
 
 ton Railroad, 
 
 3i 
 
 2,000,000 571,400 
 
 New Orleans and Lake 
 
 
 
 Pontchartrain Railroad, 
 
 2 
 
 2,300,000 1,150,000 
 
 Schenectady and Saratoga 
 
 
 
 Railroad, 
 
 8i 
 
 1,600,000 188,200 
 
 Troy and Saratoga Rail- 
 
 
 
 road, 
 
 9| 
 
 1,800,000 184,600 
 
 Totals 
 
 25 120i 18,270,000 41,143,000 
 
 V. LlNES CONNECTED WITH THE COAL MlNES. 
 
 Length. Leagues. Total Cost. Frantf. 
 
 ill. Railroads. Canali. . 
 54 
 
 16,000,000 
 
 Cost per 
 Railroads. League. 
 
 1,050,000 200,000 
 372,100 
 
 NamH. C 
 
 Chesterfield Railroad, 
 Schuylkill Canal, 43 
 
 Lehigb 17J 8,300,000 474,300 
 
 Delaware " (see Letters) 
 
 Morris " 48 11,000,000 226,800 
 
 Carbondale and Hones- 
 dale Railroad, 64 1,600,000 246,200
 
 NOTES. 
 
 465 
 
 Hudson and Delaware 
 
 Canal, 43 
 
 Pottsville and Sunbury 
 
 Railroad, J7f 
 
 Philadelphia and Reading 
 
 Railroad, 223 
 
 Various works, (>0 
 
 Totals 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 293,300 
 6,000,000 338,000 
 
 8,000,000 351,600 
 6,000,000 90,900 
 
 152 1184 47,900,000 22,650,000 
 
 VI. DIFFERENT LINES. 
 
 Length. Leagues. Total Cost. Francs. 
 
 Nnmw. Cai 
 
 Cumberland Canal (Me.) 
 
 Farmington and Black- 
 stone Canals, Mass. &c. 67 
 
 Conestoga Navigation, 
 
 Codorus 
 
 Muscle-Shoals Canal, 
 
 Savannah and Ogechee 
 Canal, 
 
 Improvement of the Hud- 
 son, 
 
 Quincy Railroad, 
 
 Ithaca and Owego Rail- 
 road, 
 
 Lexington and Louisville 
 Railroad, 
 
 Tuscumbia and Decatur 
 Railroad, 
 
 Rochester Canal, 
 
 Buffalo and Blackrock 
 Canal, 
 
 Totals 
 
 nail. 
 
 Railroads. 
 
 OfcuU. 
 
 Railroads. 
 
 Colt per 
 League. 
 
 67 
 U 
 4i 
 14 
 
 I 
 
 10,400,000 
 1 ,000,000 
 7,000,000 
 
 
 155,000 
 95,700 
 500,000 
 
 6* 
 
 
 850,000 
 
 
 130,800 
 
 11| 
 
 H 
 
 5,000,000 
 
 180,000 
 
 425,500 
 144,000 
 
 
 11$ 
 
 
 2,700,000 
 
 230,800 
 
 
 36 
 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 166,700 
 
 
 18 
 
 H 
 
 
 3,000,000 
 160,000 
 
 200,000 
 128,000 
 
 50,000 40,000 
 
 110| 
 
 24,250,000 12,690,000 
 
 VII. SUMMARY OF THE ABOVE TABLES. 
 
 
 Length. 
 
 Leagues. 
 
 Cost. 
 
 Francs. 
 
 ie > 
 
 Canali. 
 
 Railroad.. 
 
 Canal.. 
 
 Rallroadi. 
 
 I. 
 11. 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 V. 
 
 Total. 
 Deduct 
 
 7274 
 459 
 34 
 25 
 
 152 
 
 214| 
 61} 
 
 1184 
 
 242,640,000 
 147,790,000 
 29,733,000 
 18,270,000 
 47,900,000 
 
 74,550,000 
 10,500,000 
 67,840,000 
 41,143.000 
 22,650,000 
 
 1,3974 
 144 
 
 7944 
 105 
 
 486,333,000 
 72,500,000 
 
 216,683,000 
 21,750,000 
 
 VI. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 1,2534 
 llOi 
 
 6894 
 
 413,833,000 
 24,250,000 
 
 194,933,000 
 12690,000 
 
 1364 
 
 7581 
 
 < 
 
 438,083,000 
 
 207,623,000 
 
 2,1221 
 
 645,706,000. 
 
 
 59 
 
 

 
 466 
 
 If to these are added some unimportant works, about which 
 I have not been able to obtain 'exact statements, the total length 
 of the railroads and canals may be estimated at about 2,150 
 leagues, and the cost at 660 million francs. If we take into 
 account a number of important works, which have been underta- 
 ken in the last part of 1835 and the beginning of 1836, it will be 
 necessary to add 900 leagues and 300 million francs to the 
 above totals, making an aggregate of 3,050 leagues (7,625 
 miles) and 960 million francs (180 million dollars). I do not 
 include the Nashville and New Orleans and the Charleston and 
 Cincinnati railroads, which, however, will probably be executed 
 before long, and with their branches will make an addition of 
 more than 500 leagues. The Americans have already sur- 
 passed in the extent of their works, and the rapidity of execution, 
 the most active and wealthy European nations. Almost all the 
 works above enumerated have been executed in fifteen years. 
 
 The following table gives a summary view of similar works 
 in Europe : 
 
 Countries. Canals. Railroads. 
 
 England 1,100 leagues. 313 leagues. 
 
 France 998 50 
 
 Belgium 115 74 
 
 Other States 400 50 
 
 Totals 2,613 487 
 
 General Total of Eurbpe 3,100 
 
 " United States 3,050 
 
 NOTE 23 page 281. 
 
 Geological Surveys. 
 
 The legislatures of several States have lately shown a laudable 
 zeal for geological examinations of the soil. Maryland has a 
 State geologist (Mr Duchatel) who is engaged in preparing a 
 a geological map of the State, particularly with reference to 
 economical purposes. Dr Duchatel has already made some
 
 NOTES. 467 
 
 ^f 
 
 important discoveries in agricultural geology, especially in re- 
 spect to the use of marl. Tennessee has also its geologist, Dr 
 Troost. Massachusetts has a geological map prepared by Pro- 
 fessor Hitchcock. Congress has caused some examinations to 
 fye made on the upper Mississippi. Dr Jackson has been several 
 years employed in making geological surveys in Maine, and is 
 at present occupied in Rhode Island ; he has also been appointed 
 by New Hampshire to explore the geology of her mountains and 
 valleys. New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio, 
 Indiana, Connecticut, Kentucky, Michigan and Georgia, have 
 also engaged in the same enterprise, and partial examinations 
 have been made in North Carolina. New York has in addition 
 to a corps of four geologists, Messrs Vanuxem, Mather, Em- 
 mons and Conrad, a chemist (Dr Beck,) a botanist (Mr Torrey,) 
 and a zoologist, (Dr DeKay.) It is principally to the efforts of 
 the late Secretary of the State, General Dix, that New York is 
 indebted for this great undertaking. Massachusetts has also 
 organised a board of naturalists, to report upon the different 
 branches of botany and zoology. In many of the States, a topo- 
 graphical survey more or less minute, has been connected with 
 the geological explorations. Massachusetts has been trigonome- 
 trically surveyed. 

 
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